Bringing Down the Gods
by deiticlast
Summary: A Darker Doctor Who crossover - Willow needed to contact the Doctor in order to save the universe. She didn't count on contacting something a little different.
1. The Beginning Of The Middle Of The End

Prologue - The Middle of the Beginning of the End

_Unfortunately, I don't own the rights to any of the characters from Doctor Who or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Angel. They all belong to their respective copyrights. Also, I am, unfortunately, making absolutely zero profit from this. If you know how I can, please let me know. Otherwise, the actual plot is the only thing that is mine. (There's a surprise cross-over later on that I'll disclaim at the appropriate time.)_

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The quicksilver light of the moon shown through the windows of the library, casting long shadows over the eerily silent room. The cd player set at the corner of the vast chamber played a supernal melody over and over, filling the air with a resonating, hauntingly beautiful voice.

Fallen angels at my feet

Whispered voices at my ear

Death before my eyes

Lying next to me I fear

She beckons me

Shall I give in

Upon my end shall I begin

Forsaking all I've fallen for

I rise to meet the end

Servatis a periculum

Servatis a maleficum. . .

The candlelight flickered in the slight breeze that seemed to sweep up from nowhere, and returned to a locus yet unknown.

The witch moved with a slow, deliberate purpose, studying every detail of the spell she was about to cast with an intimate knowledge of arts so dark they had been lost to the world for millenia. Until she found them again. She had searched the world thrice over before finding the right caves in the Amazon, in the darkest part of the jungle never touched by human hand. The portal in the caves had led her to the Lost City of Atlantis, though it was not so much lost as it was dead, drowned under the tidal waves of a volcanic breach in the earth's crust, shifting about tectonic plates that groaned in titanic bursts of self-pity as the domains of Poseidon rushed forth to claim the most beloved city of the gods.

And there. . . There had lain the Talisman of Degobah, forged from the horn of a Black Unicorn and the tooth of a Golden Dragon. With it she had hunted down the last scions of a dying race, collecting the heads and hearts of three Hynd fauns. She had finally waited at the nest of a phoenix for three months, stealing the fire feather that would allow the bird to rise from its ashes three days later.

And finally, here she was, at the University of Cleveland, sitting directly over the Hellmouth, drawing a pentagram with a chalk made from the bones of six hundred and sixty-six virgins, obtained from a Mayan temple deep in the heart of The Land of the Veil, and pouring rock salt around the pentagram. And it was time. . .

"Golden blood, forcefully taken," she began, holding up the heads of the young Hynds, the moonlight casting an unearthly glow upon their ravaged skin. With her other hand, she took up the six hearts and bit into them, one by one, forcing herself not to gag and throw up the vile-tasting ambrosia that was passing through her lips. With the last bite she felt almost giddy, though the severity of what she was doing sobered her up before she could break the spell.

"The Fire Bird's Feather, never to awaken," she continued, dabbing the blood of the Hynds with the tip of the feather. Taking special care, as she could not use a mirror for the risk of releasing a daemon from the Other realm, she painted three symbols forgotten to humanity for a hundred millenia.

"A talisman obtained, of the most unholy," she whispered as she set down the heads of the Hynds and picked up the Talisman of Degobah.

"A life given ever so slowly." She hesitated for the briefest of seconds, but held out her wrist and sliced it, opening a vein so that it dribbled blood out onto the floor.

She instantly felt the giddy rush of dark majiks flowing freely throughout her being as she started to call down the Sun and Moon.

"In the Darkness burns the Brightest Sun,

The middle of the End has just begun,

I call upon the God of Space and Ages,

The Master of Slayers and Sages:

Come unto me, this I command.

I call upon the power of the Seas and Land,

The Four Elements combine

To sway to the will that is mine:

Bring unto me this Lord of Time,

I call down the Moon into my sublime:

Aphrodite, Venus, Ishtar, and Ashtart,

Aradia, Arianrhod, Artemis, and Artio.

Astarte, Aurora, Bast, and Brigid.

Cerridwen, Demeter, Diana, and Dryads.

Epona, Eos, Fortuna, Flora, and Freya.

Hathor, Hecate, Hera, Hestia, and Inanna.

Vesta, Lilith, Maat, Morrigan and The Muses.

Nephtys, the Norns, Nuit, Persephone, and Selene.

I call unto thee, Isis.

I call unto the goddesses all: possess me!

I call down the Sun into my sublime:

Amon Re, Adonis, Anubis, Apollo and Cernunnos.

Dionysus, Dagda, Eros, Horus, and Hymen.

Strega, Odin, Zeus, Pan, and Poseidon.

Ptah, Thor, and Thoth.

I call unto thee, Osiris.

I call unto the gods all: possess me.

By my power, and by my ken,

I invoke thee!"

The power to invoke the spell was extraordinary, even for the strongest witch in the Western hemisphere. It would take even more than she had already put forth of herself in order to call the gods down, and even more of a sacrifice to take them into her. But she had to.

She only had one shot to call this Higher Being, and she'd be damned if she didn't give it her best shot. Speaking of being damned. . .

"WHO DARES TO CALL UPON THE GODS OF ALL REALMS?"

The witch, surrounded by mystical energies that only six people in the world could live to tell about it, struggled to keep herself from slumping to the floor under the might of the sheer power of the entire realm of the gods filling the room. She knew who was talking to her, and cringed at the thought of having to confront such a malevolent entity yet again after what she had done to him last time.

"SPEAK, OR BE CAST DOWN LIKE THE PATHETIC INSECT THAT YOU ARE!"

The pain of His words made her ears bleed, but she knew she had to say something or else she would perish beneath the sheer weight of the collected might of the gods.

"I-I am Willow Rosenburg, daughter of Hecate, the right hand of the Slayer."

A different, warmer voice sounded out from the mystikal cloud around her. "THIS ONE IS OF MY LINEAGE, THOUGH SHE IS NOT OF PURE BLOOD. SHE IS TAINTED WITH THE MAJIKS OF OSIRIS."

"INSOLENT LITTLE BITCH!" the voice of Osiris boomed from the blackened void from without her, though it shook her very soul. "HOW DARE YOU CALL UPON ME! I HAVE PREPARED A PLACE FOR YOU IN THE DEEPEST PITS OF HELL! COME TO ME!"

"Wait! If you kill me just yet, you won't be able to save the Earth!"

"WHO ARE YOU TO COMMAND THE GODS! WE DO AS WE WILL. WE HAVE NO NEED OF THIS PUNY LITTLE PLANET!"

"So you have no need of the magiks of Gaia, nor of the worshipers that still give you power?"

"INSOLENT FOOL! WHO ARE YOU TO-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who am I to dare the gods, yada yada yada. I don't have time for this! The Earth is in grave danger, and soon after it, the entire universe will be devoured!"

"LET THE LITTLE ONE SPEAK, OSIRIS. SHE IS BUT A MESSENGER. LOOK INTO HER HEART. OF WHAT DO YOU SPEAK, WILLOW ROSENBURG, DAUGHTER OF HECATE, RIGHT-HAND OF THE SLAYER?"

Willow was pretty sure that was Isis speaking, though she didn't have the time to play "guess the god." She only had a short time to convince them. "Well, have you ever heard of the Medusa Cascade?"

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The lyrics belong to Evanescence, from the song "Whisper." This is a crossover with, yes, you guessed it, BTVS/Doctor Who, with a surprise crossover later on in the story. I hope you like it!


	2. You And Me And The Devil Makes Three

_WARNING! This chapter contains a violent scene of attempted rape. If you are in any way offended by, or have been traumatized by such things, I strongly advise you to skip this chapter. You can pick up at the next chapter and easily deduce what has happened so far._

_Unfortunately, I do not own the rights to any of the fandoms or universes used in this text. BTVS belongs to Joss and other adjacent gods of television, and Doctor Who belongs to the incredibly talented people at BBC (I think). I mean seriously: America has the best movies, and Great Britain has the best television series._

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She had survived, if only barely. But it had been worth it. For imbued within her was the power of fifty-six gods and goddesses, though it was only a reserve of their actual strength. More than enough to get the message through, they had assured her. She could practically feel the power crackling at the back of her eyes and on the tips of her fingers. It felt like she was holding back a tidal wave with a blanket. If she even tapped into the powers of the gods for more than a simple locator spell, she knew she would be consumed by it.

As it was, when she had looked in the mirror in the Women's Restroom at the library, all she could see of her eyes were black pools of dark energy. She noticed that she felt different too, like she wasn't just seeing herself in the mirror, she could feel herself in the 'Tween realm. Her hair had turned black, her skin pale, and prominent veins were standing out, engorged with the blackness of the power flowing through them. It scared her more than she would like to admit. It reminded her too much of the "good times," the darkness that had fallen over her with the death of the one she loved the most.

She'd had to change her appearance, of course. The glamour was worth the constant power drain (which was not really a drain now, since she had almost limitless reserves), as it prevented passers-by on the street from staring at her because she'd gone uber-goth. She'd rather not have any confrontations with anybody, seeing as she was so full of power that one look at a guy would probably disintegrate him. No, it was best to keep a low profile.

She'd made it back to her hotel without incident. After about five minutes of standing in her door, staring off into space, she closed it and put up a barrier. Shucking her clothes to the floor, she headed to the bathroom and stepped into the shower. She stood under the hot spray for hours, trying to wash the deeds of the past few months off of her skin. However, no amount of scrubbing could do away with the abominations she'd accomplished in order to call this mysterious Being who could supposedly save not just the world, but the entire universe.

After finally giving up on washing off the sins of her past, she stepped out of the shower. The sight that greeted her as she stepped out onto the wet bathroom tile caused her to slip, hitting her head on the edge of the toilet as she fell.

The last thing she saw before the world turned red, and then dark, was Tara.

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"Willow, honey, wake up."

The pain in her head was all-consuming, a throbbing she'd never before felt. What had happened?

Willow struggled to regain some sort of cohesion in her thoughts, but they seemed sluggish at best. Where was she? She was laying on something hard and very, very cold. And she was wet. She tried opening her eyes with little success; her left eye didn't want to respond, and it seemed like her other eye was crusted over with something sticky. Why was she lying here, and what was wrong with her?

"Willow. You gotta wake up, or you're gonna miss it. It's so wonderful!"

There was that voice again, that impossible voice. Where was it coming from?

"Willow? Are you gonna lay there on the bathroom floor all day, naked as sin, or are you gonna come see this? It's all so beautiful!"

Then it hit her: She was lying on the bathroom floor. Why? Because she'd been getting out of the shower when she'd seen. . . something impossible. And so she'd slipped and fell, and obviously had hit her head on something. That explained why she couldn't see, and why her head felt all sticky. There was no way she'd seen her, unless. . .

"F-f-f-first," she moaned, the pain from talking almost causing her to pass out again. She felt a pair of hands grab her arms and gently pull her into a sitting position.

"Sweetie, you don't look so good. Want me to kiss it and make it better?" It was definately the sweet voice of Tara, but what she said next proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not her. "Or should I lick it and make it better?" came that sinister overcast that Willow knew so well.

"How-how-?" she tried to whisper.

Suddenly she felt gentle fingers touching her face. "Oh, sweetie, you know better than to ask that." The thing that was pretending to be Tara used her fingers to wrench open the crusted-over lid of her good eye.

Willow screamed in pain as her eye was forced open, and then screamed even louder at the visage she saw before her; for there, crouching at eye-level with her, was the love of her life. Who had died four years ago. And she was beautiful. Except for the eyes. For in those eyes was the purest hatred, the most palpable rage and malice she had ever seen.

"You can't. . ." she started, gulping hard at the pain in her throat and bracing herself against the pain pulsating in her head. "You can't be the First. We defeated you."

She was so lightheaded from the effort of talking that she almost didn't catch the First's next words. "And I'm also noncorporeal, aren't I?" The slap that came hardly registered, nor did the fact that she passed out and was shaken awake by the form of her former lover. "Don't think you know everything about me, you stupid fucking whore! I am as old as Time, and I span across galaxies like you could not imagine. I hold the secrets of the universe to my bosom, and I burn with the First Lie!"

Though she was delirious from the pain and the earth-shattering revelations spewing forth from the mouth she once loved and kissed, Willow laughed. Or at least, giggled, as she was unable to do anything more than open her lips just slightly. "And what was that?" she mumbled, her voice rasping with blood. "That you're a good lay?"

The look in Tara/The First's eyes scared the shit out of her. With a sickening grin that twisted her beautiful face out of proportion, she crowed, "Why don't we find out?"

As Tara/The First started ripping the shower curtain away from her limp form, Willow withdrew within herself to escape the horrors of what she knew was to come. There, she found it. The Spark. The Spark was the power the gods had given her, the source of the power flowing through her. The power she'd masked with her glamour.

Up until that moment Willow had forgotten about the gift the gods had given her. She looked at it, that dark light burning at the heart of her soul. The taint that threatened to overcome the barriers she'd put up against its deluge, to drown her. But she didn't care anymore. She just wanted her to stop. She wanted Tara to stop. She wanted the First to stop. So she let go.

Tara/The First saw her grin and knew what it meant. It braced itself for what it knew was coming, but still its form was almost destroyed by the blast that came from the witch's mouth. The next thing it knew was that it was lying on the floor and Willow was standing over it, her bare foot placed firmly upon its chest. "Any last words before I make you my bitch?" she asked calmly, staring down at her dead lover with eyes of Unlight.

Tara/The First could only grin. "It's about time you manned up. I mean, damn, I was starting to think my dick was bigger than yours."

Willow cocked her head to the side and considered this. "And yet you were wrong. Why are you fucking with me? You must know I have the Spark within me. Are you trying to commit suicide by uberwitch?"

Tara/The First only grinned wider. "My, my. You get a dozen so-called 'gods' to sit up and play fetch, and you suddenly think you can kill the very essence of evil? You've got even bigger cojones than I thought."

Willow was starting to get bored with this. And a bored Willow usually equaled a dead body. Juicing her foot with enough power to kick through the concrete under the tile of the bathroom floor, she stomped down into Tara/The First's chest. Or at least where it had been.

She could sense it behind her, and she whirled around, sending a wave-pulse of dark energy at it. Tara/The First caught the energy in its hand and blew on it like one would a candle, snuffing it out. "Now come on, sweetie. You can do better than that. Oh, why don't you flay me alive, like you did that Warren fucker who killed me?"

That last part stopped Willow cold, even as she considered doing just that. "What is it that you need that is worth risking the wrath of the gods?"

"Ooh, now she's a god, ladies and gentlemen," Tara/The First laughed. "What do you think you could do to me, huh? Zap me out of this plane of existence? How long do you think that would last?"

Willow was really starting to get pissed. "I don't know. Why don't we see if we can find out?" she said, throwing out her hands.

"Wait!" Tara/The First screamed, throwing up its arms to ward off any attacks.

"What?"

"I had to test you, to see if you were ready. To see if you could do it," it said, in that soft, lovely voice Willow used to love so much.

"Do what?" she practically screamed, frustrated and angry and sad and. . . and. . . She wasn't even sure she would ever be able to gauge the full range of emotions that she was feeling at that exact moment in time.

"Well," said the First of All Evil, "I need your help."

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Reviews are the nectar of the gods. No, really! Ask them!


	3. I Really Wish You Had Rung Me Twice

_As far as I know, Jonathon Wilkes is my own personal creation. Everything else belongs to its respective owners, a list which, unfortunately, does not include me. Read on!_

/

The phone rang.

The actual normality of such an event seemed so out of place that the two lone figures just stopped for a second, trying to place the sound coming from the pile of clothing laying on the catwalk several feet away.

The Doctor, his lips mangled and both of his eyes swollen, stripped down to his pants, looked up at the host of his torture and asked, "Well, aren't you going to get that?"

Jonathon Wilkes, his fist raised in mid-punch, looked from him to the pile of clothes and back again. "How do I know this isn't some sort of trap?" he asked, knowing full well that anything he got from this one was likely to be a lie.

"Wha? You honestly think I'm clever enough to think of a trap that includes a mobile ringing while I'm being tortured for information on how to use the Rift Manipulator so that one could, theoretically, create a natural Paradox Machine and bring the Toclafane to Earth once again, do you?"

The slow, steady gaze of the desperate man settled a cold pit in the Doctor's stomach as his torturer whispered, "Yes. I think you are."

"Well, you would be right, wouldn't you?" the Doctor answered brightly. "Why don't you go answer it and we'll see what happens, shall we?" At that moment, however, the ringing stopped, leaving only the dripping in the distance of the dark, cavernous vault of the Hub, still in its early stages of reconstruction. With the harsh blaring of the phone's ringing now gone, the silence that filled the void was thunderously deafening.

Jonathon Wilkes set his gaze back on the object of his ministrations, thinking. "What is it going to take to get you to tell me how to do what I want?"

"Why do you want the Toclafane to come back, Jon? Do you really want so badly to die?" the Doctor asked curiously.

His sad eyes spoke all that the Doctor needed to see.

"Ah, I see it now. You were on the Valiant, weren't you? During that year that never happened. You can't reconcile the atrocities of what you've done, and now you want reality to coincide with what you remember. Isn't that it?" he accused, shaking his head in disgust. "Oh, I should've known something like this would happen one day. You think that billions have to die just so your own personal little world can regain some semblance of balance? How dare you consider yourself a god! You don't have the right to decide the fate of an entire world!"

The man's shadow-cast eyes darkened even further as hot rage boiled to the surface. "And just who are you to judge me? You do the same thing, hundreds and hundreds of times over! Who are you to decide the fate of the universe?"

The Doctor's eyes became glints of hardened adamantium as he rejoined, "Now you listen to me, you sorry sack of paramecium protoplasm! You're not even worth the designation of 'human being.' Who am I to judge you? Who am I to decide the fate of a universe gone wrong? I'm the Doctor!" he declared in righteous anger. "The last of the Time Lords, a race that was risen to the heights of Might and Power over Time before your puny little planet was yet formed! You have no idea of what will happen if you open that Rift! You think the Toclafane will come through the Rift over Cardiff from the end of the universe, but you are wrong! You have no idea what would happen if I told you how to change the nature of the Manipulator."

"Okay," was the calm, steady reply from the wildly desperate man. "Normally, at a time like this, I would just shoot you and start fiddling with the Rift Manipulator, but you'd regenerate, and I'd have to kill you again; the whole process would take a very long time. So, I'll tell you what I'm going to do," he said as he pointed his automatic pistol at the dark figure slumped over in a chair on the other side of the Manipulator.

The Doctor, preoccupied until now, had not noticed the figure. He could not be sure of whom it might be, but if he had to guess. . .

Wilkes rolled Gwen Cooper over to the left side of the Doctor, who himself was chained to the underside of the catwalk at the bottom of the Hub. "I'm going to shoot Ms. Cooper here unless you tell me what I need to know."

"No, don't!" the Doctor shouted. His indignant anger evaporated at the thought of an innocent being harmed because of him. "I can't tell you how to change the nature of the Rift, but I can't let you shoot her! Not because of me!"

"You can't have it both ways, Doctor," Wilkes replied evenly, thinking that he had finally gotten the better of the smug Doctor. "Tell me, or I spray this floor with her brains."

The shouting had woken up the unconscious Gwen, and so, as she looked up into the barrel of an automatic handgun, she screamed.

"Shut up! Shut up, or I'll shoot you right between those gorgeous eyes!" Wilkes roared.

Gwen, both scared shitless and pissed off at the implications of Wilkes' obvious accusation, shut her mouth. But, curiosity was getting the better of her, so she asked, "Excuse me, but what is going on here? Who are you, and how did you get into Torchwood?"

Jonathon Wilkes just smiled. "You wouldn't know this, but I was once on the government-sanctioned team tasked with getting inside this facility and killing every one of you. I'm telling you, it was the hardest job I've ever had, killing Jack Harkness." The look of confusion on her face just made his smile sadden. "But that didn't happen."

The far-off look in his eyes lasted only for a second, but the faint smile on his lips told her that there was something more there. Maybe it was something she hadn't been briefed on? Damn UNIT, for its secrecy. If only Tosh were still here. . . and Owen. And Ianto. And Jack. She'd had to rebuild Torchwood by herself, and the Hub with it.

The Doctor, almost growling in his fury, snapped her back to the present. "Don't tell him anything, Gwen! Don't you tell him a thing!" Wilkes scowled at the Doctor, smashing his jaw with the butt of his gun.

"So what do you want?" she asked, ignoring the Doctor. He obviously wasn't in any position to help, so she had to follow her own rules, and that was finding out what information she could.

"Ah," he replied, that slight smile returning to his face. "The all-important question. What do I want? I want you to tell me where the diagrams to the Rift Manipulator are."

"No way," she almost yelled at him. "Are you crazy? Do you know what happened the last time someone tried to use that thing?"

Instead of answering, Wilkes leveled the gun at her left knee and let out a spray of bullets, severing it from the rest of her leg. Amidst her screams, he could hear the Doctor's.

/

"You need my help? Are you crazy? Why would I help you?" Willow demanded, bewildered.

Tara/The First just smiled. "Don't you see it? It's all so beautiful!" it exclaimed, raising it's arms and looking about as if it could see something magnificent.

"What are you talking about? I don't see anything."

"Exactly," replied the First, as the form of Willow's lover strode up to her and smacked her across the face.

"Now listen here-" Willow began before she was cut off.

"No, you listen! You have no idea of the magnificence surrounding you, the wonder of Creation around you. Instead, you remain in ignorance of the Uncreation that is just so imminent that it's practically knocking on your door."

"What? Huh?" was all Willow was able to reply, as she could make no sense whatsoever of what the First was talking about. "What are you talking about? I already know about the Toclafane."

"You stupid little pissant! Don't you think the Doctor's already working against the forces trying to bring the Toclafane to that alternate Earth? It's his dimension, after all!"

"So I don't need to contact-what was it you called the Being Buffy dreamed about?-the Doctor in order to get him to stop this threat?"

"No! He's already on that."

"So what do you need my help for then?" Willow demanded, crossing her arms.

Tara/The First slapped its head in exasperation. "What else? The ending of the universe!"

"But, isn't that kind of what you want? I mean, you're Evil and all. Why do you want my help to stop this?"

"Don't you get it?" Tara/The First grabbed Willow by the shoulders and gently shook her, a hint of desperation surfacing above all that hate and malice. "If the universe is no more, then I am no more. I am the greatest power of all: an Idea. I was witness to the Birth of the Universe, as I sprung Terminus at the Big Bang. I shall be witness to the End of the Universe, after the stars have gone cold and the Space Between has become hot with the melding of all Time and Space. I am undying, as long as there is Life. I am the Answer to Life. Without the Equation, I don't exist!"

"Oh," was all Willow could think to say. "So. . ."

"Help me!"

"How?"

"I need you to contact the Doctor. He'll know what to do."

"But what is it that is going to end the universe? I don't get it. What is it that has such power that it scares even you?"

Tara/The First shuddered as it answered. "There's something, in the darkness. I don't know what it is, but it's moving toward us."

"What do you mean, toward us? Aren't you, like, everywhere?"

"You know, to be so powerful, you really are ignorant of how the universe works."

Willow was getting more than a little tired of The First getting up in her face like it was, so she pushed it away and brushed off her shoulders where it had been holding her. She could see the lines of bruising of where its fingers had held her so tightly.

"So, how do I contact this Doctor?" she asked. "Isn't he in, like, this whole other dimension?"

Tara/The First smiled as it reached into its pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. "Well, that's the easy part. Here's his cell number."

/

Wilkes had staunched the blood flow to Gwen's leg, but as it was, she was all but dead. It was a good thing he'd gotten the information he'd needed from her. He probably would have had an easier time hearing her through her screams if the Doctor hadn't been screaming at the top of his substantial lungs as well. As it was, he'd resorted to knocking the alien out in the end.

And so there he was, just about finished with tapping in the data into the alien input device, when he felt a hot wind blow past him just as a dark-red light flashed behind him. Turning around, he saw a rather attractive emo chick in full-on black leathers holding out her right hand at waist level, with a ball of some sort of energy forming on her palm.

"Who are you?" he asked, drawing his automatic pistol and leveling it at her.

Ignoring his question, she asked, "Are you the Doctor?"

This question would have been absurd had it not been for the ball of dark energy forming over the palm of her hand. "No, I'm not."

"Where is the Doctor?" she asked, her voice flat and dangerous.

When he looked into her eyes, he knew he'd be dead within the next minute, so he pointed over to the other side of the Hub where he'd dragged the Doctor's unconscious body. While she turned her head toward the direction he'd been pointing at, Wilkes typed in the last two symbols on the screen and stepped back, watching the long column of the alien device hum to life, whirring as it built up power for what it had been programmed to do.

"What did you do?" the girl shouted at him. "What did you do?"

His smile was weak, but triumphant. "I've made things right. They're coming, and there's nothing you can do to stop them."

Willow raised her hand and threw the ball of Unlight at him, turning him to ashes before he could do anything else. She ran over to the control panel he'd been working at, to see if she could try and stop whatever the hell it was that he had just done, but it was in a language she didn't know. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn it looked alien, though she was sure that was impossible. Either way, though, she couldn't stop the big thingy from whirring louder and louder, so she did the only thing she could think of: she used magic.

The problem with that, though, was the fact that the machine she was pouring her energies into seemed to only feed off of her. Okay, so not good, thought to herself. What do I do? I'm not from this universe. I have no idea how things work here. She looked around for something to smash into that glass-looking thingy; she was just about to pick up a piece of rod that oddly enough was just laying there, when she saw the Doctor.

Rushing over to his limp form, she bled a little of the healing energy from the Spark into him, reviving him almost instantly. He jumped to his feet, ignoring her for the moment. After a second of surveying the situation, he turned to her and asked, "Who are you?"

For some reason she couldn't explain, Willow blushed and said, "I'm-I'm Willow Rosenberg. I'm from another dimension. I tried calling you a few minutes ago, but no one answered the phone."

"Ah, so you're the one who was ringing me, then? Really wish you'd rung twice."

"Huh?"

The Doctor didn't bother answering her as he leapt over the banister and down into the area just in front of the control panel of the Rift Manipulator. After only a second of looking at the screen did he shout, "No, no, no, no, no! This can't be!"

Willow ran down the ramp and came up beside him. "What is it? What's going on?"

"Well, the surly little bastard succeeded in manipulating the Rift, that's what happened. And the little bugger's locked me out of the system." Searching frantically through his pants pockets, he turned to Willow and said, "You haven't seen me shirt anywhere, have you? Or my coat for that matter?" After a few seconds of staring into the strange girl's confused eyes, he declared, "Never mind! Even if I had my sonic screwdriver, I wouldn't have time to stop this thing from doing its business."

"Um, if you don't mind me asking: what is its business?"

"Destroying world," was his matter-of-fact reply.

"What?" came the surprised and scared response from Willow. "You mean you can't stop the world from ending?"

"No, I didn't say that. I did say that I didn't have time to stop it from 'doing its business. What I didn't say was that the world was going to end."

Willow was still confused, but she pressed on. "Then what are you going to do?"

"Well, I'm going to have to channel the energy into myself in order to prevent it from going anywhere else."

"But won't that. . .?"

The Doctor stopped for a moment and looked her in the eyes. "You ask a lot of questions for a witch, you know that?"

"But, how did you know-"

"See what I mean?" exclaimed the Doctor, cutting her off as he climbed into the structure of the open-framed machine. "Now, when that panel goes from one squiggly line to two, tell me. I've got to time this just right."

"But, but, but," Willow stammered, unsure of what was going on. Everything was happening too fast for her to be able to keep up. "But I just got here! I ripped a hole in the very fabric of the universe. I need your help!"

The Doctor just flashed her an award-winning smile and said, "Don't they all?"

Willow heard a beep coming from the control panel to her left. The Doctor took this as the signal for the right time and placed his hand in the direct path of the energy conduit. An intense white light streamed from his hand and covered his entire body, so that it hurt to look at him. Willow looked anyway.

Before she did turn away from the bright light that seemed to consume the entire chamber of the Hub, Willow heard a still, small voice that whispered, "There is another."

Then he was gone.

/ 

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	4. Forgotten Sandcastles

_I don't own anything pertaining to this universe nor any others. It all belongs to those minor demi-gods who created them._

/

The birds chirped gaily in the bright afternoon sun, rising on warm thermals up and over the refreshingly green treetops of the playground. Down below, children laughed and played on swing sets and jungle-gyms, blissfully ignorant of their parents' ever-watchful eyes. Most of the children played together, taking turns at the swing or playing tag on the monkey bars.

One little girl, however, was sitting by herself in the sandbox, morosely filling up a green and pink plastic bucket with the white sand. She wasn't feeling all that into it, after the day she'd had. First, she'd woken up late, so Mom wouldn't let her eat on the way to school (because no one ate in car), so she'd had to eat on the playground while the other kids got to play. Then, while she was finishing off her Toaster Strudel, Mandi had poured juice all down her new flower dress, and she'd had to change into the old shorts and shirt Ms. Atkins kept in the Backup Cubby.

Plus, over the past couple of weeks, she hadn't seen her bestest-best friend Angela-not once! She'd looked everywhere for her, and she hadn't found her. That really upset her, because she normally could find anybody she could think of almost instantly. But she hadn't found one trace of her!

That's why, as she sat there in the soft sand, she didn't notice the pretty lady who knelt down in the sand beside her until the stanger's shadow fell over her bucket. She looked up and frowned.

The pretty lady didn't seem to take the hint, so she went back to her shoveling, ignoring the strange woman's friendly eyes and big smile. It wasn't until she'd finally filled up the bucket and was about to add the final ingredient to it from her water bottle that she felt comfortable enough to look at her again.

But she was gone. Now, this confused Prudence to no end! She knew she would have noticed if that woman had gotten up and walked off! After all, she had been keeping her in the corner of her eye, just like Mommy and Daddy had told her. But she wasn't there!

What she did next was almost instinctual, she had done it so many times. She knew she shouldn't but a using her locator powers couldn't harm anything, right? Placing the palm of her hand over the spot where the pretty lady had been kneeling, she shut out the rest of the world and opened her mind to the stranger, picturing her face as best she could.

There! She was behind her! She whirled around to see the pretty lady standing tall, with her hands on her hips and a proud smile on her face. "Now, that was something, Prue! You must be one powerful witch to find me like that!"

Prudence, knowing she should be scared, couldn't help but let her curiosity win out on her. "How do you know my name? Are you a demon?"

The woman just laughed, as if the idea itself was silly. "No, sweetie, I'm not a demon. I'm just somebody who needs your help for a moment."

"What do you want?" Prudence asked, becoming more and more curious. She knew she shouldn't be talking to this stranger, but something about her made her seem. . . what? Nice? She was sure there was a better word for it than that, but she was only in second grade.

"I need your help to find a friend. I haven't seen this friend in so long, I've almost forgotten what she looks like. Would you help me find my friend?"

Prudence eyed her cautiously, not knowing what she should do. She knew she wasn't supposed to use her powers unless Mommy or Auntie Paige or Auntie Piper was around, or she had permission to play with her other magical cousins at Magic School. But, she was growing up, and she was almost seven! She was tired of being told when to use her powers, and when not to. Plus, she knew for a fact that Mommy used her powers to help other people when they asked her to.

"Well, I don't think I'm allowed to, but. . ." she began, knowing full well she was going to help this nice lady as best she could. That would show her mother that she could use her powers just like her! Then a thought hit her. "Um, I don't know how much I can help you, though. I've been searching for my bestest-best friend in the whole wide world, and I can't find her!"

"Do you mean Angela?" the woman asked, her bright blue-gray eyes clearly showing that she had some sort of surprise for Prue.

"Yeah! How did you know?" Prudence exclaimed, excited to know that this lady may know where she was.

"It's sort of my gift, Prue. I have powers, too, you know."

"Really? Like what?" She wanted to know about her friend, but again her curiosity got the best of her.

"Well," the lady started, before she shrunk to the size of a thimble, growing wings and growing very bright. "I can change my form. What do you think about that?"

Prudence loved that! "That is so cool!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "But, I don't know if we're allowed to do magic here. I might get in trouble." She looked about her cautiously, to see if anyone had noticed the woman turning into a fairy.

"No, no, Prue! You don't understand! You're the only one who can see me."

"Really?" she asked, once again looking to see if Auntie Paige could see them. "Is that another power?"

"Yes, it is," came the tiny voice.

"Can you teach me the transformation spell?" Prudence practically begged, jumping up and down in excitement.

The now tiny lady nodded her tiny head, hovering at eye sight with her. "I'll teach you if you help me."

"But, I'm not sure if I can! If I can't find your friend, you won't show me the spell, will you?" she asked dejectedly, knowing for sure that was the case.

"Hey! Not true!" The lady changed back into her original shape, and was squatting in front of her. "I'll show you even if you don't find her. But, I have a feeling you will."

"Really? Why do you say that?"

"Because," the lady smiled, reaching into her shirt pocket and pulling out a computer chip. "I have this for you to search with. Hold this, close your eyes, and search."

Eagerly, Prudence snatched the chip out of the not-so-strange lady's fingers and concentrated. Surprisingly, she could hear the woman's voice in her head as she searched. "Look beyond this world, Prue. Look farther than you've ever looked before. Look into the 'Tween!"

Prudence had been told many times by Daddy never to look into the 'Tween, because there was nothing but danger there. But, she really wanted that spell, and this woman claimed to know Angela, so she looked.

And screamed.

"Keep looking, Prudence! You're almost there! I can almost see it. Don't look away now! I can almost see it in the Darkness!" the voice shouted in her head, hoarse and mean sounding, different than before.

"But I'm scared! It hurts to look here!" she managed to gasp out in between screams. "It won't let me go!" she cried as she tried to pull away.

"Don't look away! I almost see it!" came the disembodied shouting once again.

Prudence's screams stopped for a moment as she saw something so incomprehensible, something so maddening that her seven year old mind couldn't process it. And then she screamed in pain, as it clawed at her soul.

Blue light swarmed to her side, corporealizing into Paige's form. "What happened?" she shouted at the stranger in shock as she pulled the girl's limp, ragdoll body into her arms.

The woman only smiled and winked. "I think I've got what I need, Paige. I'm done here, for now."

"But who are you?" Paige screamed at her.

"Who do you think, sis?" With that, the woman disappeared.

"Leo!" Paige called out to the sky, freaking out the few milliseconds it took for him to orb in. With one look at Prudence, he pushed Paige to the side and placed his hands on his niece, applying everything he had into her. But, nothing happened. In desperation, he tried again.

"Nothing's happening! Why isn't it working?" Paige cried, her nerves torn to shreds.

At that moment, Wyatt showed up with Phoebe, having orbed in from Magic School. "What happened here?" Phoebe cried, seeing her poor daughter lying motionless on the ground.

Paige looked her in the eye and whispered, "I think your - our - dead sister killed her."

Then, Prudence's eyes flashed open.

/

_**Reviews are the nectar of the gods! Do your thing!**_


	5. ShortLived Reunions

I don't own anything except for the original text in which these universes (owned by their various, well, owners) are presented to you in this original story (the text is largely done thanks to my betas.

On with the story!

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/

/

In the Void It waited, drifting in the most Absolute Calm. This was it: perfection. There could be no peace without the Void. It knew this, because It had been born of the Void, in the wake of transdimensional vessels ripping their way through the universe of matter. Telepathic resonances gave It sentience, and It railed at Its existence. So much pain, so much. . . life.

/

May 20th, 2010 Venice, Italy

Three weeks later

"So, what, you want me to just undo the spell?" Willow queried, looking for some sort of method to the madness of the Slayer's thoughts. After everything Willow had done these past few weeks, it seemed strange to be sitting outside of a cafe, talking with Buffy while drinking mochaccinos, like everything was normal. It even felt strange just to be talking to her friend.

Willow hadn't been in touch with Buffy much lately because, well, for three years she'd been basically trying to forget about that toxic bitch Kennedy and all of the pain she'd put her through. To fall out of love with her. She hadn't succeeded. If Tara had seen her during her time with the newbie Slayer, she would have probably sworn that this was not the Willow she loved. So, Willow had finally left after one particularly nasty argument that turned physical, leaving her with one broken bone in her face, two broken ribs, internal bleeding, and an arm that, without magic, would never have worked again. Oh, Willow had turned Kennedy into a frog (it was the first thing she could think of) and was about to smash her with her good foot when a dozen slayers had crashed in and tackled her. She was sure the local witches on call could turn the slayer back, but not after considerable effort. She was, after all, the most powerful witch in the world.

She snickered as she thought about the fact that turning her ex into a frog and stomping it to death had completely cured her phobia. And ooh, the things she'd thought about doing to her afterward that she wished she had thought of at that moment! Oh, well. Hind-sight's 20/10 and all that. If only she had paid attention to the warning signs, she could have saved her friends.

She'd come back for one day three years ago for Xander and Giles' funeral. Apparently, along with Kennedy, they had been training a few newbie slayers on a scouting mission through an abandoned district just outside of Chechnya. They were ambushed by thirty or so vampires and were overtaken, their bodies torn limb from limb. The only one to survive and tell the tale was Kennedy. After that, no one would look her in the eyes.

Willow just knew that Kennedy had something to do with their deaths and the deaths of the fledgling Slayers. She'd always thought of them as weak, taking away from Buffy's ability to really do what was necessary. She had even told Willow that she thought that the three of them were too close to the Slayer, that they made her weak. They had fought about that, too. Willow had tried to talk to Buffy about it at the funerals, but she was in her own little world. She numbly stood there with a glazed look in her eyes as Willow tried to convince her to do something about that murderous bitch. Buffy had only responded that she should watch the accusations she made, and turned away. Willow had been so angry that she teleported over to Kennedy and performed the Sanguinis Malificus Curse on her, until Willow was knocked out by a nearby slayer.

Buffy had written her a couple of times, sending it out on the information superhighway. She only wrote about personal stuff, stuff that nobody would be interested in. Not matters of state anyway. She'd sometimes write about a friend who had died, or this new guy she was toying with. But every now and then, she'd write about something important. She'd be brief, but she knew that Willow deserved to know the state of affairs - to know how deep in the shit she really was, like now.

"No, it's just that I-" Buffy stopped short, knowing that she had to choose her words carefully. "It's just that sometimes I think there's. . . I dunno. . . maybe too many hens in the, um, hen house. Or something like that."

This last statement startled Willow so much that she practically choked to death on her iced mochaccino mid-slurp. Now she was worried.

She knew Buffy and her moods. And when she started making farm-related analogies in order to not step on any toes, toes were usually stepped on. And removed. As well as various other parts of one's body that one might need-like, say, a head.

As she stared across the table at her friend outside a corner cafe a few minute's walk from the San Marco Piazza, she suddenly realized that she didn't really know her at all, not anymore. The girl sitting in front of her had evolved beyond that simple, naive Buffy that led those poor Potentials to their deaths. She was even more than that strong, death-bringing leader that had fought back the hordes of Hell from swarming the Earth.

This Buffy was a politician.

As time passed, and more and more independent, strong-willed, super-powered young women and even younger girls arrived at her doorstep, she had learned fast what it took to keep them all from taking over the world. She had built a tight-knit community, and it was strong, but it was also strained. There were too many unstable, hormonal girls out there with world domination on the brain, thinking themselves superior to the rest of the world because they could force their will on it. And now that the world's demon population was almost non-existent, and there was nowhere for her "girls" to focus their pent-up aggression, no way for them to "scratch their itch," as Faith called it before disappearing three months ago. No one knew where she went, but then again, no one really cared enough to go looking for her. After all, she was the Rogue Slayer, right? Who cared if she up and disappeared?

Well, Buffy cared, and she had used resources that others thought might be better used for something else. Like taking down the bad guys, human or not. Buffy had strongly opposed to this since the beginning, because even a blind man could see how that could be easily twisted to serve one's own personal agenda. There had been strong opposition against her constant vetoes of even talking about the subject, especially from Kennedy, the head of the Second Gen Representatives.

When Buffy had unceremoniously sentenced another slayer, Jessica, to death for the murder of the Immortal, Buffy's erstwhile lover, and then commenced to carrying out the execution, she had almost had an uprising on her hands. She probably would have been killed herself had Willow not shown up, all veiny and lightening-bolty, threatening to turn them all into toads. That had made the majority of the Slayerettes back off, but it only served to intensify the underlying heat in the Slayer community. The Second Gens could mutiny at any time, and Buffy knew it, which was why she was venting to Willow.

"Willow? Are you even listening to me?" Buffy demanded, snapping her out of her reverie, completely oblivious to Willow's lofty musings.

"Uh, yeah. Henhouse. Gotcha." Willow stammered. She knew it was a lame recovery, but Buffy seemed to accept it as she talked on.

"I mean, the only friend I have in this world is Vi. Slayer friend, that is," Buffy quickly corrected, seeing the look on her companion's face. "Anyway, even with Vi my hands are almost virtually tied, as Kennedy has the Missions Committee and the Majority of the House under her thumb. If I make one wrong move, one tiny mistake, Kennedy could call for an immediate impeachment."

"Well, that's not so bad, is it?" Willow asked, suddenly optimistic. "The worst they can do is say you screwed up and kick you out."

Buffy shook her head, her face as grim as Willow had ever seen it. "You're forgetting that Slayer politics is different from that of the rest of the world. When the rest of the world has a problem with their leader, they do something lame like hold a trial to make them look so bad that they step down, or just don't elect them anymore. When the Slayers have a problem with their leader-me," she explained, pointing to her chest with her biscotti, "whether they want to depose me or they think I'm wrong about something, they have to impeach me. Gladiator style," she said, holding up her pastry and snapping it between two fingers.

"But, but-" Willow sputtered, surprised by what her friend was saying. "Are you saying that one of you has to get beat up? To get ahead?" The look of disgust on her face was evident, making Buffy wince all the more when she asked, "Who came up with this barbaric law?"

Buffy could only stare into her double-fudge macchiato for so long before Willow threw her straw at her to get her to answer. "Well, um, you see. . ."

Willow's eyes grew wide as she realized the truth. "You made that law? Why? When? Why wasn't that interesting tidbit in any of your e-mails?"

Buffy tried to come up with the right words, but a look from Willow made her decide that she should be totally honest and forthright. "It was right after Jessica and Kennedy hooked up. You had left about a month earlier, and with the pressures of leadership and keeping the peace, and the demon activity taking a turn for the lesser, I had to do something." She tried not to look up into her friend's hurt, stunned eyes as she pressed on. "My girls had nothing to do, since I absolutely am against getting into Foreign Affairs with dumbass governments, and there's almost no Big Bads around anymore after we kicked the First's ass and closed up all of the remaining Hellmouths. Ever since my girls have been getting a little antsy.

"And then comes Jessica, fresh from Britain's elite posh schools, complete with a nose that almost naturally turns up at anything less than solid-gold china. This bitch was ambitious. She came into her Slayerhood better than most of the other girls, with her porcelain skin and great tits, not to mention one of the most talented and strongest fighters to ever walk through the doors of our Italy compound. She thought she was hot shit and deserved the best, and a lot of the other girls thought so, too." She finally looked up at Willow, to see if a single tear would slide past the other girl's stonewall defenses. None had. She knew this part already. Will was just letting the girl in front of her say what she needed to say. However, she didn't miss Willow's surprised look at Buffy's Faith-speak.

"Look, I'm sorry Will, but I tried to talk her out of it. Kennedy could only see Jessica for what she put out there for other people to see, but I saw through it. She was a conniving, backstabbing bitch who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. And what she wanted was power. My power. She wanted to make the Slayer government into a real gladiator type thing, fight to the finish and everything," she sighed, unable to come up with a better term for it in her distressed state. "She got the entire House of Generations behind her, too, which meant I couldn't automatically veto the bill. So I compromised. No death if it is not necessary. The victor would be chosen by either knockout or forfeit." The pained expression on her friend's face almost made her stop, but she was nearing the end of her explanation, so she decided to finish it.

"And you know the rest. She killed Marcus, whom you know as the Immortal, to hurt me, so I hurt her back. I cut her down where she stood, and it almost got me killed." A sharp, questioning look from Willow told her that she actually didn't know what had happened next. "Willow, I'm so sorry. I thought you knew!" Buffy exclaimed her hand flying up to her mouth. "Xander told me you were checking in now and then! I'd just assumed you'd talk to somebody else after he died. After all, I wasn't exactly the best friend to you at his and Giles' funeral."

"What, Buffy? What happened?" Willow almost screamed, the veins running across her temples standing out.

Buffy didn't want to go on, but she knew she risked the wrath of a very powerful witch if she didn't continue. "She attacked me, Will. Kennedy tried to assassinate me as I was taking a shower. The only reason I'm alive is because I was so wet that she couldn't keep her grip on me as she tried to stab me with her ninjato. I managed to roll out of the bathroom and into my closet where I kept the troll hammer. I smashed her knee as she came at me again."

Willow tried to speak, but Buffy cut her off, knowing that she had to explain herself. "Later on she claimed that she had formally challenged me to Impeachment-that we had agreed on my bedroom because we didn't want to upset the girls with our fight." Buffy would have continued had it not been for the woman who appeared in a ball of blue light to their left and plopped down in the empty chair apparently exhausted.

Before either Buffy or Willow was able to ask this girl just what the hell was going on, the stranger held up an outstretched palm with a purplish-white crystal lying in the center of it. When she pointed it at Buffy, it didn't do anything. When she pointed it at Willow, the thing grew so bright that it almost blinded everyone within a half-mile radius. "Yep, you've gotta be Willow Rosenberg," the strange, pretty witch grinned, happy to have finally found what she'd been looking for.

She put the crystal in her pocket and turned to Buffy. "You must be Buffy Summers, the original Slayer." Without waiting for a reply she asked, "Do you know how hard you are to locate? I've been traveling this 'Mother' of a magical world for two weeks trying to find you. Willow here's got some pretty heavy mojo to be able to shield you so well. I actually had to track down her energy signature in order to even get close to you. No easy feat, let me tell you."

Willow was the first one to get a word in edgewise. "Who are you? And what do you want?"

The woman's face turned grim as she answered, "My name is Paige Matthews, and I need your help with that." Buffy and Willow turned their heads toward the direction Paige was staring, only to meet the swirling black pools in the eyes of the little girl who was marching up to them. Willow raised her hands to perform a Thickening spell, but Paige pushed them down before Willow could draw upon the energies from the Spark. "Don't. You'll just make her unstoppable." She turned her eyes to Buffy and whispered, "This is all you, Slayer. I hope you're as good as they said. . ."

/

Like it? Let me know, K?


	6. Pulling Sharp Things From Odd Places

Pulling Sharp Things From Odd Places. . .

The story is mine; the characters/universes are not.

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/

"What the. . .? Did she just pull a sword from her crotch?"

Willow, who had been staring at the creepy little girl swarming with power that was almost palpable from across the square, looked over to Buffy and the witch who had introduced herself as Paige.

"Yeah, it's pretty handy, isn't it?" Buffy grinned, twirling her sword around so that the light caught its keen blade. Then she stopped, and Willow could see her friend's inner wheels finally start working as she realized how it probably looked to the girl who was staring at her with her jaw halfway to the ground. "I mean, uh, it's sort of. . . this. . . magical. . ." she stammered, trying to remember the words Willow had told her a long time ago. "There's this do-hickey that Willow fixed up for me. You'd have to ask her," Buffy finally blurted out, urgently hoping Paige would stop staring at her that way.

When she did, Willow answered her questioning look with a sigh. "I saw this movie once, called Ultraviolet, where they had this technology to pull weapons out of an extra-dimensional portal to a dimension they called Flat-Space. I thought it'd be cool to have one of those, so I figured out the math for it (with Fred's help), made up a spell, and sure enough, it worked. I gave one of the Flat-Space sheathes to Buffy, here. What I didn't expect was for her to strap it to her thigh," she finished, trying to not even get a visual on that. So not going there.

Paige just stared at her, stunned at the ingenuity of this obviously far-more experienced witch. "I, uh, um. . . could we chat later on, after all this is over? I'd really love to swap recipes with you."

Willow looked back at the other girl in confusion. "Huh?"

Paige's face lit up with laughter as she answered, "Hello? Witches? Spells and potions, that sort of thing?"

"Oh!" Willow exclaimed, feeling more than a little stupid. "Maybe later. Shouldn't we, ah. . ." she started, looking around for Buffy. But Buffy wasn't there. She'd been so engrossed with talking to this rather cute girl with brown hair, gorgeous eyes, and full, sumptuous lips that she'd almost totally forgotten that there was a possessed little girl who was there to kill them all.

Turning to the square, Willow almost missed the flaming ball of black fire hurtling towards them. She gathered up her powers and was about to teleport them out of harms way when she could feel the other girl's magic pouring in through her, softly wrapping her in warmth, love, and joy. The next thing she knew, she was on top of a building, watching that same fireball hit the cafe and explode, covering everything in a liquid black fire.

Willow, still a bit giddy from the teleporting's side-affects, looked over to Paige with a huge, goofy grin, to say something about how that was sooooo cool, when the look on the other witch's face wiped that grin away. She looked. . . horrified. "I have to. . ." she whispered as she watched the people who had been caught by the liquid flames, their cries of agony just now reaching them. Willow could sense that she was about to teleport back down there to try and help some of them, so she drew up her own powers and and anchored her there, holding her by the shoulders and whispering in her ear, "It's too late, Paige. There's nothing that can be done for them."

Paige's was finally able to tear her tear-filled eyes away from the horrible scene, and instead looked into the eyes of the witch that held her. "I'm supposed to help them," she explained. "I'm a Whitelighter. I'm the last of the Charmed Ones."

Willow was at a loss for words. This girl claimed to be the last of the Charmed Ones, the legendary witches that had defeated every single corporeal manifestation of the First? The ones that supposedly could never be beaten? If she was one of the Charmed Ones, what had happened to the others? What was so powerful that it could succeed where the First had failed so many times? She had to know.

She placed her hands on Paige's face and whispered, "Show me." She closed her eyes and let this stranger show her the events of the past, and the truth of what it was to know true fear.


	7. A Broken Mind

A Broken Mind

I own nothing but the creativity to meld existing universes together, however unskillfully.

So don't sue me, because I'm poor, and I won't give you my truck.

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Everything, and everybody, dead all around me. I lift my eyes up to the sky, and see only ashes. The poetry of the Death of those I love, moving throughout me. I am the last of a heroic line, who here will save me? We witches three, who have brought the end of so many, now are reduced to but just one, and I can't stop the pain. Is there a spell to bring them back, or do I just die instead, for who can help the world now that its Charmed Ones are dead?

Are there yet others Charmed, charged with the fate of the world? There is a chapter in the Book of Shadows, that tells of a girl cursed, one in all the world imbued with the power she alone fights. I will find her because I must, and she must right this wrong, for the world is on the road to Hell, and I'm the one who paved it.

The witch's innermost thoughts were so poetic and full of pain that Willow quailed at the sight of her broken heart. She'd gone too deep, too soon, and was seeing the end result, the girl's nightmares returned to her. No, she'd better back off, and wait for the beginning to come. She knew that if she pushed too hard, too fast, she would crush the girl's will to live, with the state she was in. So she sat back and waited for the crashing tidal waves of Paige's mental agony to subside.

And then. . . Flash!

They were in the underworld, hiding amongst the hell-spawn, when Paige noticed a movement in the corner of her eye. On reflex she grabbed Phoebe and orbed a dozen feet away. Piper, who had been scouting the next cavern, was still gone, and Paige could only thank the gods that was the case, because not two feet from where her and Phoebe had been standing, her favorite homicidal niece teleported in, appearing in a mist that was so black that it hurt to look at it. She wasn't sure how she knew, but Paige was sure that she had just caught a glimpse of Uncreation.

Flash!

There was screaming. Horrible, inhuman screaming.

And there was fire. Everything was on fire!

Pain! So much pain!

Willow strove to make sense of the imagery she was given, to sort out the pieces of the puzzle of this girl's broken mind. She reached out in the ether of despair that clouded Paige's memory, and took her hand

Flash!

The screaming had been her own; she had orbed over to her sister, the flames spitting darkness as they raced toward Phoebe.

Flash!

"Go, Paige!" Phoebe shouted as she stared down her daughter. "Find Piper! See if she can't freeze Pru!"

"That won't work, Pheebs, and you know it. The heirs to the Charmed Line can't be frozen, just like us! I need to stay here with you and figure out a way to stop her!"

Phoebe only shook her head, the sorrow evident in her tear-filled eyes. "She's not my Pru anymore, Paige," she whispered, though Paige heard every word she spoke. "She's gone. She's not Charmed, and. . . and. . . we've got to try something!"

So she'd gone, orbed away. She'd found Piper, but she wouldn't come. Said something about the end of the universe. When Paige tried to orb her away, she'd resisted.

Her eyes. They were like looking into the vortex of oblivion.

Flash!

Phoebe, standing before her dead daughter, her arms open, as if welcoming the child she'd once born.

Flash!

Ash, flames, screaming.

Flash!

Piper, limp in her arms. Her head lying several feet away, staring up at her. Accusing her.

Why am I still alive

Flash!

Willow broke contact, gasping for breath. It was a good thing she'd done so, because she had been on the verge of drowning in the other girl's sorrow. Paige was broken on the inside so badly that her memories were a jumble. The only way she'd survived as well as she did was by using magic to block those memories from her immediate emotions. She could have done so without the use of magic, but it was a hell of a lot easier and faster with it.

"Paige?" Willow whispered in her ear. "I need you to look at me, k?"

The trembling witch wiped away the tears streaming from her eyes and willed herself to open them. What she saw when she did made her gasp.


	8. Drinking The KoolAid

The Devourer and its agent, Prudence Love are my own creations. The rest of the characters shown here are the property of their respective owners, whoever they may be (I'm too lazy to look them up). On with the story!

/

/

/

Willow didn't know what was happening to her, but by the look on Paige's face, she was sure something was WRONG. She let go of the other witch and straightened, looking around. Not sensing anything with her human senses, she sent tendrils of power throughout the glen they'd teleported to, feeling out the surrounding area. And she'd been right: there was something WRONG, all capitals necessary. There was only one being that she knew of that registered like this in her Wiccan senses, and it pissed her off that it was playing games at a time like this.

"First? Where are you? Show yourself!" she demanded, the power flowing from her Vishuddha, the air turning a pale-blue.

At the edge of the clearing, something sinister flickered in the dim shadows. Moving at lightening speed, it was beside Willow and Paige almost instantly, its form still unsubstantial and flickering like a blocked channel on television. Willow drew yet more power from the Spark, blowing dark magicks over the flickering figure. After a few seconds, it finally took shape. As Buffy.

/

Buffy'd dodged the black ball of fiery-stuff easily enough, doing a side-somersault to the left, though she accidentally caught the tip of her handachi's kissaki on the edge of the roiling cloud of dark fire, almost dripping some of it onto her leg as she completed the maneuver. Any other blade would have melted on contact, she was sure, but she'd made sure she had an enchanted weapon on her at all times for moments just like this. However, the fact that the sword had been magicked by Willow didn't stop it from burning where it had been touched, and no amount of shaking could get it off, though she did catch the fringe of her favorite skirt on fire with the liquidy drops that sprayed off of the tip of her favorite sword.

"Just freakin' great," Buffy muttered to herself as she swatted out the flames that had begun to eat away at the frail fabric of her skirt. "I just can't have nice things!" Hesitating for a split second, she ripped off the rest of her tattered two-thousand dollar Neiman Marcus designer summer wear like one would a band-aid, though it didn't seem to ease the hurt any.

And that left her in the middle of a square with only her revealing blouse and her Hanky Panky thongs. The expensive ones. Looking down at her Jimmy Choo's, she bit her lip in debate, and quickly decided to gently place them out of the way. No use in fighting a demon child and ruining a perfectly perfect set of shoes. Which reminded of her of the demon child, who was almost upon her with its slow, Jason-esque deliberate speed.

She whipped her sword around to the thing that was once a little girl, sending a fresh spray of black fire into the thing's face. Its face sizzled and burned, causing Buffy to hold her breath for fear of smelling that hamburgerish smell and throwing up. However, the demon-girl never even flinched, much less slow down from the pain. She just kept on coming. That's okay, Buffy thought to herself in her own evil little way. You want some? Come and get some.

The girl reached out her hand, black flames dripping between her fingers onto the cobblestone of the square, gathering its dark power for another round of Toss the Greek Fire on Crack. Buffy wasn't going to wait for her to throw it, though, no siree. Jumping up and over the demon-child, she flicked out the tongue of her blade and cut off the girl's arm at the elbow, and stuck the landing on the other side of the girl like a true Olympian gymnast.

/

"What is going on?" Willow raged at the First. "Why are you in Buffy's form?"

The First faltered a little under her inadvertent discharge of power. "Tone it down a little, will ya? You have no idea how close I came to not being here at all."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Willow demanded. She was about to bitch-slap the First with as much power as she could muster (just for the hell of it), when a still, small voice stopped her cold.

"Where were you?" Paige asked, still sitting on the ground with her knees to her chest.

Willow thought the First would laugh, because she knew the answer to that. Or at least she thought she did, because the First didn't laugh: it looked scared. "I was. . . Nowhere."

"That's a lie!" Willow exclaimed, pushing the First back with a quick shove. If the First looked stunned, Will was shocked. She turned back to Paige and motioned for her to get up. "Slap it," she commanded, motioning at the First.

Paige was confused. "Why do you want me to slap her? Isn't this Buffy?"

Willow shook her head so hard she thought she might have knocked something loose up there. "No, Paige, this is the First of All Evil. She. . . it can take the form of anyone that has died."

Now Paige was really confused. And scared, because that meant. . . "So Buffy's dead?"

"Not necessarily," Willow replied, pushing back a strand of hair from her eyes. "Buffy's died a few times. It never really takes," she explained, casting a questioning glance at the First. "However, I do wonder. . . what possessed you to look like Buffy? Why not Tara or Giles? Looking like Buffy's not really going to screw with me like you might think it would."

Buffy/the First sighed, looking at her/its feet. "Well, it's sorta like my default, ya know?"

"Your what?" Willow asked, incredulous. "Why is she your 'default?'"

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, OKAY?" she/it roared.

"Can you look like one of my sisters?" Paige requested, hopeful.

The First turned its deadly gaze to the weaker witch, grinning from ear to ear. "Is that what you want, last of the Charmed Ones? Do you want to see your sisters again? I can make that happen, you know. I can even take you to them, if you wish. . ."

"Back off, bitch!" Willow growled, back-handing the face of her best friend.

"Y-you're the Source, aren't you? We've killed you, my sisters and me," Paige snarled through slit eyes, building up her nerves. "I'm sure Willow and I could do it again."

As much as Willow would have cherished handing the First's ass to her, she held up her hands, calling a truce. She needed a few questions answered first.

"Why can I touch you without using magick?" The question seemed to bewilder Paige, but the First's answer scared Willow shitless.

"The same reason I wasn't here."

"Wait a sec," Paige piped up. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Wow, you witches really are dumb bitches," the First crooned, a grin surfacing on her face. "You see what I did there?" she giggled.

"Behold," Willow drawled, "the vast intellect of an all-powerful supreme being, The First of All Evil." She rolled her eyes at the First's snickering. It annoyed her how much it was like Buffy when in her form. Turning her attention to Paige, she explained how very deep in it they all were.

"The First is a First Order God, brought into existence a millisecond before the universe was formed. It wasn't weaved into the very fabric of the universe, like the Second Order Gods; to the contrary, the universe was weaved into the very fabric of The First, as well as the other First Order Gods. Because of this, the First has omnipresence, being everywhere all the time. And, because of the fact that the First is everywhere at all times, it is impossible to touch it without transdimensional magick." She let that sink in for a second before continuing. "Therefore, we are screwed."

Paige was trying to wrap her brain around all this new information from a witch that was beginning to scare her with the knowledge and power she commanded with ease. "So the times that my sisters and I defeated you, it was only a physical vessel for your power?"

Willow was overcome. "You are so hot right now," she whispered. Paige could only blush as the First nodded in affirmation. Turning back to the First, she had a sudden realization. "And the fact that you, as a First Order God, who is now only here and not there (in an abstract sense), is corporeal as a whole in one set of dimensional coordinates says to me that the universe, which is weaved into the very fabric of you, is in danger of either being distorted or destroyed, though the two aren't mutually exclusive in this context."

"Give the witch a medal. She has half a brain. Now, what are we going to do about helping me get my powers back?"

"How did this happen to you?" Willow asked. "I have to know what happened in order to be able to reverse it."

"Um, should we even be thinking about helping her. . . um, it, gets its powers back?" Paige asked, an uncertain hand raised to shoulder-level.

"And she crashes and burns, lady and gentlemen!" the First shouted to an invisible audience.

"Paige, if the First doesn't gain its powers back, the universe will implode in upon itself, to a single point in time and space, one dimension each."

"Oh," Paige replied, feeling a little dense. "How long until that happens?"

Willow thought for a second, biting her lower lip? "Um. . . fifteen minutes, give or take?"

"What?" Paige shrieked. Turning to the First, she demanded, "What happened? And you'd better make it snappy, missy!"

With a demure grin the First answered. "Well, if you put that like that. . ."

"Out with it!" Willow boomed, her fingertips crackling with energy.

"Okay, okay! Don't get your panties in a wad!" the First rejoined. Spreading her fingers out before her, she started buffing her fingernails with a chamois nail buffer she produced from thin air. "Well, it's like this: I went to go watch the fight between Buffy and that little demon brat when I thought it would be a good idea to move the square out of its relative time, so that they could fight uninterrupted. And so, as I settled in for a front-row seat, I felt something I'd never felt before. . ."

"What was that?" Paige urged.

"It was sort of a. . . tug." The fear in the First's eyes scared the shit out of both of the women standing before it. "All of a sudden, I wasn't. . . anywhere. I was nowhere. I just. . . wasn't."

"How do you think this happened?" Willow asked.

"I think," the First began, hesitantly, "that the Devourer's agent, that little demon bitch, stole my powers."

/

And it grew back.

Damn it! Buffy thought to herself. I hate when that happens! She'd fought demons before that just regenerated whatever limbs you cut off. However, there was one rule of thumb that always worked in her case: cut off their head, and they stay dead.

Twirling her sword around in an expert show of skill and speed, she flashed a menacing grin at her opponent. The demon child didn't move. It kind of creeped Buffy out, the way the thing just stood there, staring at her.

"Hey, Rosemary's baby! Didn't mommy ever tell you it's not polite to stare at strangers?" With that, the tip of Buffy's sword darted in and stabbed the little girl in the eye, bringing some of it back when she pulled away. However, at the exact moment the tip of her sword penetrated her opponent's eye, her own eye was pierced.

Buffy screamed even as her opponent's eye grew back, pressing her hand to her right eye as blood and vitreous squirted out. "Ah, fuck!" she screamed in anguish. The pain was so intense that it was all Buffy could do to back away, trying to put distance between herself and the bitch who'd somehow stabbed her in the eye. It was all she could do to concentrate and not curl up into the fetal position on the flagstones and just cry.

But oh, was she pissed. She was too pissed to give up. Too pissed to let this little BITCH do that to her and get away with it. Willow may and she may not be able to restore her eye, but either way, this piece of shit was going to get it.

Focusing all of her rage into her sword, she pushed aside the pain and the wooziness that she felt, drawing upon all the powers of the Slayer she had within her to take her revenge out on this demon bitch with as much pain as she could dish. Running back up to her, Buffy's sword arm flew, cutting here, slicing there. Beating the living crap out of her.

The little girl matched her cut for cut, blow for blow, and before Buffy knew it, she was on the ground, bleeding from every part of her torso and legs. She had to hold her intestines in with her left hand, warding off the demon girl with her sword arm.

In the back of her mind, she knew something was wrong. Throughout their whole fight, the girl had just stood there and taken it, not producing a weapon other than a black fireball, and even then she hadn't used it. So how did Buffy come to be on the ground, close to blacking out from so many cuts and contusions? A flash of blue off to her right caught her attention, and almost killed her as the girl finally threw her ball of dripping blackness.

But Buffy wasn't there anymore. Paige had teleported her out of the way just as the black flame splashed where her chest would have been. Reappearing at the edge of the square about seventy feet away, Buffy did pass out.

/

Willow and Paige, with the help of the First, orbed back to the square. There, they could see Buffy lying on the ground, probably unconscious. Without a word, Paige disappeared in ball of blue light and reappeared at Buffy's side, orbing her back to where Willow and the First were waiting. Seeing Buffy unconscious, Willow let out a stiff sob, knowing instantly what had happened.

Paige wasn't panicking, though. "Give me your hand," she said, holding out her own. Willow gave her hand to the other witch, and immediately felt Paige's powers reaching out to her own. Willow allowed her Han to link with Paige's, not quite sure what she was doing.

Paige drew upon the memories of her half-sisters, the joy she'd felt finding a family again after a decade of being alone. They'd made her feel loved, like she was a part of something. She'd not only completed their coven; she'd completed their hearts. And no matter what had happened to them, she knew that they would live on with her in spirit.

But she wasn't the only one that needed to feel love. This poor soul that lay before her, unconscious and bleeding, was dying, and there was something she could do about it. She let the love, the source of her power, pour out of her and into the woman laying at her feet, taking away the hurts and bruises and replacing them with peace, contentment, and joy. She loved Buffy, and her love healed her.

/

Buffy's eyes flew open, a strange feeling washing over her. She didn't hurt anymore, and when she moved her arm, she could see that her stomach was whole again. And so was the rest of her. She looked for Willow, about to thank her, when she saw her best friend staring in awe at the strange girl who'd gotten her into this mess. Paper, or something.

Neither one of them spoke, looking into each other's eyes and all. Buffy was about to get up when she saw another figure, sitting back on her haunches, studying her with eagle eyes. The First.

Now Buffy was pissed. "What the hell are you doing here?" Buffy demanded, leaping to her feet. She was about to advance on her when Willow caught her by the hand.

"Wait, Buffy, it's not what you think. The First, she—it, helped us."

"Damn it, Will, have you been drinking the Kool-Aid?

The other girl spoke up now, pulling Willow's hand from Buffy's and enveloping it in her own. "It's true, Buffy. She may be a bitch, but she's in this with the rest of us."

Buffy's eyes narrowed as she considered the girl's words. "What do you mean, the First is in this with us? You mean it's afraid of this bitch too?"

As if in answering her question, the First slowly rose from its haunches walked sedately over to her, standing face to face, staring her in the eye. "I'm making us invisible to her," it said, its eyes darting to the left. Buffy turned her head slightly and jumped. The demon child was standing two feet from where she stood, staring directly at her.

"Um, you sure about that?"

The First just grinned, never taking her eyes off of Buffy. "Oh, she knows you're there. I can't stop that. She's just waiting for me to use my power on her, or to release you. One way or another, she'll have us all."

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked, her voice trembling. Anything that could scare the most powerful being she'd ever met scared the shit out of her.

"Buffy," Willow started, her voice wavering a little. "This girl, the agent of what the First calls the Devourer, steals a person or being's magic and uses it against them. The First used its magic to transport you and the Devourer's agent out of time, and it stole the First's power, bringing you back. If we don't get the First's power back, the universe is going to fold in on itself like a black hole."

"So," Buffy said uncertainly, "black hole bad?"

"Black hole very bad."

"Damn it." Buffy looked back over at the little girl who was about to end existence as they knew it and bent over to pick up her sword, giving it one last twirl.

"But Buffy, there's something more!"

The edge in Willow's voice caught Buffy just before she stepped beyond the veil of the First's protection. "What is it?"

Willow hesitated for moment, but cried out a rather loud, "Ow!" after Paige pinched her. Sighing, she answered her best friend. "The Devourer's agent steals your magic."

"Uh-huh. We've gone over that."

"And then uses it against you."

"And. . .?"

"And your strength is your power, a magicked effect on your person. And that sword is magicked as well. Remember? It cuts anything?"

"I think I know where you're going with this." Boy, did she ever. The realization of how the little girl had inflicted that much damage on her person without so much as raising a finger had just dawned on her as her best friend talked.

"Buffy, I don't—"

"Look, if I don't kill this bitch then the world ends, right? I'm the Slayer, it's what I do. Kill things that make the world go bye-bye." She started to turn back to the girl when she quietly requested, "Tell Dawnie I love her." With that, she jumped, vaulting high above the Devourer's agent, landing on the other side of her and running, trying to put distance between her friends and the upcoming battle. Hopefully it won't be a long one, she silently prayed to herself.

The girl followed her, a black ball of fire forming above her outstretched palm. Buffy, having an idea, took her sword and jammed it into the ground, so that it stuck out of the rock flagstones like Excalibur. Then, she reached between her legs. . .

And pulled out an Uzi. Yeah, it was random, but it was one of the things she'd packed for herself that day when going out. Because ya never know, she thought, grinning to herself. Checking the chamber, she took calmly took aim and fired, firing center mass and at the head as well. After almost emptying the entire clip, the girl finally staggered, going to one knee.

Quick as a whip, Buffy dropped the Uzi SMG and grabbed up her sword, effortlessly pulling it out of the flagstone she'd driven it into. She ran like the wind, closing the distance between them in mere seconds cutting the very air as she raced with her sword out, poised to strike.

She was milliseconds from bringing her blade to bear when she saw the girl's eyes, so dark, without light or hope. Without malice nor hatred. She just was, taking that which she needed to fulfill her task. Buffy understood her then, like she understood herself. This little girl, the agent of the Devourer on Earth, had a mission to do, and she was trying to do it to the best of her ability. She wasn't doing it because she was evil. She was doing it because she had to.

Well, Buffy had a mission to do, too. Save the world. And maybe the universe. That part was unclear, but whatever. If she killed two birds with one stone, then that's just great. But she had to kill this little girl to do it. So she did.

The world seemed to slow, the air growing thick like molasses as Buffy brought her blade down on the young girl's neck, severing it from her shoulders. Buffy, likewise, could feel the invisible phantom blade slice into her own neck, just above the collarbone, and then, she felt nothing. She could see the world falling toward her, though when her face struck the ground, she felt no pain. For the few seconds before she blacked out, she wondered if she'd get to go to Heaven again.

/

/

/

I don't know if you've noticed a pattern or not, but I've been setting the scene up this whole time for the secondary characters to be the only ones left fighting this Biggest of Bads. I wanted to end with Buffy, since she's my favorite main character from all the tv shows I've used so far. I hated to kill off so many people that you guys love, but it was the less hokie way of getting rid of the main characters and letting the secondary characters have a go.

If you like my story, or hate it, or just have an opinion, please let me hear from you! Click on the "Please add a review" link below and let me know what you think!


	9. Things That Make Ya Go Quor'Toth

_I own nothing. Literally, I own nothing. So if you try to sue me for using these characters or universes used here (none of which belong to me), it won't do you any good._

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**_June 13th, 2010_**

_Two weeks later_

Willow wept.

She hadn't stopped crying for weeks, it seemed like. Whenever she woke up in the morning, it felt like there was someone sitting on her chest. When she went to sleep at night, there was a hole where her heart used to be. If it hadn't been for Paige, there would have been no way that Willow would ever have made it through the devastation of losing her best friend. There was nothing she could do about it, either.

Buffy had died before, yeah, but not like this. There was no coming back after dying like that. She didn't even bother trying, knowing that it would be fruitless. So she ached. And cried.

Paige, too, was grieving, though not for the loss of the Slayer. She'd only known her for moments, whereas her sisters she'd known for years. She'd lost both of her sisters to her niece, possessed by an entity that scared Evil Incarnate. They'd been close, the Charmed Ones, especially after the death of the first sister years ago. They'd learned not to take each other for granted. Like Willow had taken Buffy for granted.

Buffy was indestructible, she'd thought. She's the one Slayer that's going to survive. But she hadn't. Willow hadn't gotten to tell her best friend how much she loved her. She'd never. . .

Willow couldn't breathe. She had to get out of there.

For the weeks following the funeral of the Slayer Head of State, the Council had been in session, trying to find precedent for the death of the Indestructible One. Nobody else had ever thought that she'd die either, so there'd never been any motions passed to that effect. Everyone had thought that if Buffy was ever to be knocked off her throne, so to speak, it would be through a challenge by right of the Athena Legislation. Since nobody had beaten her in outright combat, nobody could claim leadership of the Slayer Nation.

Except Kennedy. Kennedy had, from the beginning, coveted Buffy's position. Plus, she was the second highest ranking Second Generation Slayer, right behind Faith, who had disappeared four months ago. And so, with a vacuum for the most powerful seat in all of Slayerdom, she stepped in, naturally.

There was opposition, which she squashed with an iron fist. The Athena Legislation was called upon, and seventeen Slayers died before the rest of the Council took the hint. Kennedy was the boss now. Willow had come close to using her god-bestowed powers to zap the girl to Quor Toth, but couldn't bring herself to do it. The Slayer nation needed a strong leader, and in times like this, whether she liked it or not, Kennedy was the best fit for the position.

For now, she thought bitterly, feeling the black magicks crackling hotly behind her eyes.

She was done with crying now. She'd cried enough; now was the time to do something. Something, productive. Standing up abruptly, she startled herself almost as much as she did the other members of the Council.

"Is there something you'd like to bring to attention of the esteemed Council, Magus Rosenberg?" came the stark voice of Willow's former lover from the other end of the Council Chamber.

It took Willow a second to get her bearings and form a coherent thought, but then it hit her. "Yes," she began confidently. Before continuing, she looked around the Council Chamber, searching the eyes of the Slayer Councilmembers seated there, each in their own alcove with the same agenda on the screens before them. What she had to say was not on the agenda for today. Oh, well.

"Is there something about the parking spaces you'd like to add, Magus? Because, if not, I'm sure it can wait until it can be added to tomor—" The look in Willow's eyes stopped Kennedy mid-syllable.

"I will say this now!" Willow boomed. Turning her attention to the rest of the Council, she continued. "We need more Slayers."

There was complete silence in the Council Chambers as the others tried to absorb what the grieving witch had just said. There was a polite cough as one Slayer on the other side of Willow shifted in her chair, calling attention to herself in the strained silence. "Magus Rosenberg?"

Willow settled her deadly gaze upon the Slayer, a girl she did not know. "Yes?" The girl tried to hide her nervous stutter, not quite succeeding. Willow could see the genuine fear in her eyes, so have her a little smile, which seemed to frighten the small girl even worse. It was then that she noticed the blackened veins on her hands, and instantly knew what the girl was so scared of. She had gone Darth Willow without knowing it again. She probably would have scared herself if there'd been a mirror she could have used.

"Um, where are we going to get, the um, more Slayers from, um, Magus Rosenberg? I mean, um, haven't you already called all the, um Potentials out there?" She actually had a valid question, which she'd formed with an absolute minimum of "ums," Willow observed with no little respect.

"The question should be," a voice boomed from the other end of the Council Chamber, "is why we need more Slayers? Do you know of some Hellmouth we don't have under wraps?" Man, Kennedy was really starting to piss her off.

"I don't know if you noticed, sweety," Willow added acidly, noting the surprised looks of the other Slayers present, "but we just had the best Slayer in the history of the world have her ass handed to her by an agent of an entity that we don't yet fully understand!"

Kennedy's knuckles grew white around emblem of the Slayer Head of State engraved on the arms of the Matriarch Throne, denting the heavy alloy it was engraved in. "It's not my fault she couldn't handle a possessed little girl," she ground out slowly, her heated glare never leaving Willow. Even then, she never saw it coming.

A black, swirling portal opened up underneath the entire throne, engulfing both it and the surprised, screaming Slayer down into it, closing up as soon as both of them were through. After everything that almost gotten sucked in with them settled, Willow could feel everyone's horrified gaze shift back to her, and to her amusement, she could even see that most of their mouths were dropped in shock.

If Willow didn't have the Spark in her, she wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Kennedy was quick, and she would have jumped away from the throne if Willow had started to chant or raise her hand in order to invoke the spell. With it, she hadn't even had to blink to call upon the portal to Quor Toth, which was supposedly sealed shut. Giving herself a small grin that probably scared the remaining Slayers in the room even more, she pushed her screen out the way and moved to the center of the Council Chamber, slowly turning to look every girl present in the eye.

"Now, if there aren't any more interruptions, I'd like to continue." She didn't really expect anyone to say anything, but she politely waited for the obligatory thirty seconds before going on. "To answer Councilwoman. . ." she turned to the Slayer that had spoken earlier, waiting on her to say her name. She never did. "To answer the esteemed Councilwoman's question, yes, I did call of the Potentials in the world. This world." She paused for a moment to let that sink in before continuing.

"Now, about six weeks ago I made entrance into an alternate timeline, one in which magick is not a prominent part of reality, and the Slayer line was not present. I've come to the conclusion that I should perform the Activation Spell there, and then try to make entrance into yet another alternate timeline, and do the same thing."

She knew that everyone was too scared to ask any questions, so she reached out with her mind and entered theirs. Turning to a Slayer to her right, one with ebony skin and pure Ethiopian features, she answered her unasked question. "I believe that even though the Slayer line is not, the Potentials are. I performed a test not long after I got back, and I think somebody, or something, has blocked the Activation Spell from occurring for thousands of years." Turning her attention back to the rest of the room, she explained, "Now don't forget that there is some magick there, it's just very, very weak. I'm still looking into the cause for this, but I don't think it has anything to do with the present, and I don't think it should affect the Activation Spell.

"Now, any more questions? No? Good. Council adjourned." The Slayers all at once scrambled out of their alcoves, rushing for the door as Willow called after them, "Don't forget to go by the Cafeteria and try out Andrew's new Raspberry Sorbet!"

/ / /

"How stupid d'you think I am? That bloody wanker's got his knickers in a twist and he's blaming me for it!"

Donna Noble couldn't help herself. It's just that lately she'd been feeling restless, like there was something more to life than just temping. Granted, she was the best temp in Chiswick, but that was turning out to be not enough. Deep down, with every fiber of her being, she knew that she should be doing something else.

And then there was her boss. He'd pinched her bottom and she'd backhanded him with a loud, "Oy!" Not long after he'd called the police, saying she'd assaulted him. So now here she was with a hand on her head, being lowered safely into the back of a police car. And she was not going without a fight.

"He's gone barmy, I tell you! He pinched me arse and you're locking me up?" The policeman just shut the door, ignoring her. "Argh!" she growled. "Figures! That's just my bloody life! Can't catch a break anywhere!"

Just then, there was a blinding flash of white light, and Donna was temporarily blinded. She was just starting to freak when her sight started to slowly come back, though she noted something wonky was going on with her hands. There was some sort of yellow-orange light shooting out of her fingertips, and she could feel a familiar warmth around her eye-sockets. And then it hit her:

"Human/Time Lord biological metacrisis activated by psionic macrotransmission of irrational kinesic-neutrinos from a ley line Nexus," she announced to no one in particular. The strangest thing of all was that fact that she understood exactly what it was that she'd just said. Looking down at her handcuffs, she saw thirty-seven ways of getting out of them without tools. She was out of them in a matter of seconds. She was out of the police car in another four, and disabled the two scuffers who'd arrested her.

Pilfering their mobiles and the laptop sitting in the front seat, Donna took off. She ran for what seemed like hours, not stopping to rest until she finally arrived at her destination: the mobile phone tower that serviced Chiswick and the surrounding area. She was inside in a matter of minutes, hardwiring the equipment to her purposes. This Earth technology was never meant to be used like what she planned to use it for.

She had a bleedin' special ring up to make.

/

/

/

_A special apology to all of my British readers:_

_I'm sorry about Donna's language, but I'm an American with little to no idea of how British lingo goes, so I had to resort to an American to British translator. I hope that doesn't offend you. I know it's a bit off, but I've watched Doctor Who and I've had more than a little trouble sorting out what Donna and Gwen and a few others are saying, not to mention the Doctor (though I thought that was a given)._

_Please review! It's what makes me want to write more. . . hrmm. . . hint, hint._


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry about the very long wait, but college and work has taken over my entire life, but thankfully I've some time to get back at it. As always, I don't any of these randoms or whatever they're called. The Devourer is the only character that is original, and so is the plot. So, don't sue me, because I am making no profit from this, and I'm not giving you the last five dollars in my pocket. Special thanks to my beta, who stuck with me through all my finicky nit-picking over my story.

On with the story.

hr/ The bright, hot sun glinted off of the blue-gray water of the Atlantic Ocean, the refracting rays lost in the subtle waves that made for the platform upon which the First stood.

Ever since the day it had used that little Hallibitch to look upon the face of Nothingness, the First knew that its grasp on the universe was going to slip. Why was this? Because it knew, in its infinite wisdom that comprised all of the knowledge of the universe, that the side of the Light was going to rise up, en masse, against a perceived universal apocalypse.

Which, indeed, was what it could very well turn out to be. Everything, sucked into oblivion: all matter, all energy, everything. Even the First. Destroy the First and you destroy the universe. It had no way to be sure, but it had a pretty good notion that the reverse also worked as well. After all, the reason the first statement worked was because the universe was tied into the very essence of the First. Take away a part of it, and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.

And so it needed the Good Guys to win this one. Not to save all the puppy dogs and kittens and all the cute little babies, but because their victory ensured the First's continued existence. It could care less about all that other bullshit (except for the kittens—it wasn't sure why, but kittens were just delectable to the lesser demons, and so kept up morale for the Dark Side). It would have done something else-ianything/i else, for that matter—had it not known that its greatest enemies would be the only ones with the ability to even challenge the Devourer. It would have sent its own powerful minions, but they just seemed. . . stupid compared to some of the heroes on the other side of the fence.

iSome,/i not including the Andrew creature, though that didn't really count since he had originally been a pawn of the First, so that might as well cancel the good in him out. But. . .

Maybe some fresh blood would help the First's cause. It had been influencing the path of a new player, and was just about to put him into play—

An internal signal snapped the First out of its private musings as it was alerted that the target was in the optimum position for a special transfer. Causing the appropriate void in certain laws of physics and adding the extra to the spot it needed, the First teleported the subject of its interest to a spot directly in front of it.

There was a great flash and a boom, a sickening ipop/i, and Gabriel Gray was standing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in front of the First of All Evil.

To Be was a burden. It hated that it existed more than the insignificant specks of matter and energy did. The one speck, it had hurt this raging beast of Nothingness. It had gazed upon its dark warrens and opened a doorway to a place that was rife with energy and life. Chaos, illuminating the night like so many gnats swarming in one's nose. Oh, how it hated It All.

But it could now think on a cogent level, though not in a way that beings of Life could. It thought of how wonderful it would be if it could make the universe like it used to be, before It All. Before it became conscious of the universe around it and shivered in monstrous pain. It wanted It All to stop.

And so the Devourer, driven with a hunger for only peace and unbeing, formed a plan. And with rapture, it reveled in the thought of devouring It All.

Gabriel didn't think. He didn't have to. Being teleported away from his next mark just as he was about to move? To the middle of the ocean? No, it was obvious what was about to happen. So he acted.

He flung out his hand, bolts of lightening cracking the air as it sizzled to its target. And kept going. Gabriel was just a bit surprised that his first attack didn't work, but only a little. He'd seen enough of the world and its freaks of nature to know that nothing was impossible. Like avoiding his next assault.

Again, his hands flew out, though this time they were directed at the water around the girl. Almost instantly, the water around her rose up dozens of feet high, and came crashing down on her. When all the spray cleared, she wasn't even wet. This was starting to get on his nerves.

Now he had to think. He didn't have any mental abilities that could work any mojo on an obviously incorporeal person (iweird!/i), so there was only one thing he could try next: use his original ability to figure her out. After all, he could, from the very beginning, always figure out what made people tick.

And. . . he got nothing. Not even the empathy ability he'd stolen could register any emotions coming from her. It was like she wasn't even there. Except that she spoke to him.

"Are you done yet? I could do this all day," the pretty little blonde finally said.

iGetting sassy, now, are we?/i he thought to himself. iWe'll see if she's as badass as she thinks she is./i "You obviously don't know who you're dealing with, little girl," he replied, the threat evident in his rough voice.

To his surprise, she just laughed at him. "And you obviously don't know who I am, Sylar." Okay, not that big of a surprise, knowing who he was. She ihad/i teleported him out into the ass-end of nowhere.

"Okay, then. Who are you?"

The pretty little smile that graced her lips for the few seconds before she answered chilled Gabriel to the bone. "I'm more of an idea, really, than a person. I'm like what Freddy Krueger would be like if he was a god and not just a dream demon. As a matter of fact, I invented him. He's a little pet project of mine. I've corrupted many souls with his character. . ."

It took all of two seconds to figure out what this petite—though rather attractive—girl with astonishingly beautiful green eyes was getting at. "So, what? You're the Devil?" She just stood there, her eyes daring him to refute it. "Let me get this straight: the Devil's a blonde?"

The First was starting to lose patience. "You have no idea of your potential, Sylar. If you become my Champion, I can help you become so much more than you are right now. Don't tell me you don't hunger for it still." The First inched forward, stepping lightly on the ever-increasing choppy spray of the Atlantic Ocean. A storm was coming, and it needed to be ready for it.

Not many things scared Gabriel Gray, but the icy-cold grin coming from this pretty little blonde's cute little mouth gave him the chills. Sizing her up, he didn't know what creeped him out the most about her. She was a fairly attractive blonde with superpowers (much like a certain cheerleader he knew), whose eyes threatened to pierce his soul and hang him above the eternal fires of Torment (which was absolutely nothing like a certain cheerleader he knew).

He'd never put much stock in religion. Not because he didn't believe in a higher power or anything, but because he never really saw himself as the worshipping type. He let God or whoever be whoever They wanted to be, and he'd be Gabriel. Or Sylar. It depended a little on which side of the fence he was feeling for the day. Up until now, however, he'd honestly thought that the Devil was just the evil inside you, and not some powerful being.

"Actually, I'm both."

This startled him back into the present, focusing his thoughts once again on this girl claiming to be the Devil. "Explain." It irked him that he couldn't read her. He could read anybody, anyithing/i, and understand it completely. Except her.

"I am everywhere, Sylar. I am in ieverything/i. I am the evil in your heart, and I am this avatar you see before you. You can't read me because even though I'm ihere,/i I'm also ithere/i as well. To understand me is to understand the universe itself, and no mortal can comprehend the vast complexity that is ibME/b/i. I hold the secrets of the universe, and I burn with the First Lie!"

"You've used that before, haven't you?"

Finally, he'd caught her off guard! "Excuse me?"

"There's no excuse for using dated material, Devil. You just told me that you were all-powerful, and you use a line that you've used before? Tsk, tsk. You don't think I warrant you're A-game? Now, I'm just a little offended."

"What? How did you—"

Gabriel couldn't help but to grin. "While you were talking about how great you are, I noticed some psychic waves emanating from a part of you that I could get a fix on, and as you probably know, I stole this interesting ability a while back. I think it's called—"

"Clairsentience, yes, I know. I've been following your moves since the beginning, Sylar. That's why you've caught my eye. You've become very powerful."

"Very true," Gabriel grudgingly replied. Gesturing to their surroundings, he asked an obvious question. "So why are we here? Let me guess: you want to go fishing, but being a great and powerful being, you forget to bring a boat, right?"

The First smirked, but otherwise ignored his petulance. "We are above your training grounds. Directly below your feet is Atlantis." He was about to say something about the absurdity of an ancient city under millions of tons of water being his training ground when the Devil did something crazy. She lifted her arms, gave him that pretty yet terrifying smile, and said, "Arise."

Directly under him, bubbles started to rise to the surface, great sulfurous gas pockets roiling to the top of the ocean that had held an entire continent for sixteen thousand years. The waves around him started leaping up, dozens of feet high, getting higher by the second. Just when Gabriel thought they'd be overtaken by a thunderous wave, the water beneath the two of them started to swirl, picking up speed until it became a whirlpool.

Gabriel and the pixie-looking blonde girl he was beginning to believe was the Devil didn't move from their spot, however. When the water started to funnel beneath them they seemed to stand upon solid air. All of this happened so fast that Gabriel hardly had time to comprehend it, though his mind was racing at full-speed. He knew what was going on. The land was shifting beneath them, and the water was moving out of its way to accommodate them. Only it wasn't happening like it should be. It was going way too fast.

Deep inside his own thoughts, he almost missed the great darkness that spread out beneath him, a shadow from below that was moving at unnatural speeds. Before he could register the fact that the shadow was moving towards them, a glistening spire burst through the surface of the water half a mile off to his right, and then another one off in the distance that he was facing. A mountain peak shot up, amazingly after five extremely tall towers revealed themselves all around him, marking the center of an incredibly huge pentagram. Tops of buildings revealed themselves, in a pattern that very much reminded him of Venice. Trees shot up, foliage intact and brimming with green, and finally long, rolling hills all about him. Even the fields surrounding him shot up past them, until they were finally standing on solid ground, in a depression carved into a hill like an ancient theater.

After all of this, the Devil, with her arms still raised, looked at him and asked expectantly, "Well?"

Gabriel fought for his bearings. This was all just too much for him. He'd started off his day well enough, stalking a man with the ability to be in more than one place at once, and now suddenly he was in Atlantis, raised from the ocean by the Devil who had abilities that made Samuel and his own pale in comparison. But he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of letting his being overwhelmed expressed to her. Let her read his thoughts for that. "I used to know a guy who could do that."

It wasn't the Devil's scowl that caught him made him jump, but the unexpected voice coming from behind him. "iThis/i is what you brought me, First? Doesn't look like much to me."

Gabriel whirled around to face the strange voice, finding a tall man with shoulder-length raven black hair, large gold hoop earrings, black leather pants, and some sort of leather patchwork vest over bare skin. He looked like some sort of leather-clad grunge bass player. Except for the sword strapped to his side. Even the hilt and scabbard told Gabriel that this strange man was dangerous, and he had no doubt that the blade hidden there was wickedly sharp. Gabriel, who was never one to let his immediate fear cloud his judgment, decided that he'd had enough.

And he let them know it. His hand dashed out, clutching at air, and used his powers to explode the arrogant son-of-a-bitch's heart right out of his chest.

Except, it didn't exactly work.

One moment he was reaching out with his mind, and the next it was like he'd hit the psychic equivalent of a brick wall, head first. He wheeled back in pain, clutching his head in a wrenching scream that died in his throat. He couldn't think straight, it hurt so much. There was light, red and glaring inside his skull, and the feeling that his brain was being ripped to pieces by a wolverine. And then, in the midst of all that agony and confusion, his original power—his ifirst/i power—kicked in, and he understood.

Struggling to bring his hands up above his head under the psychic assault, he let out a blood-curdling cry, siphoning off the destructive energies into the atmosphere. When his sight cleared, he could see the other man looking at him appreciatively. He was saying something, but to Gabriel's burning ears, it just sounded like muffled amusement.

He laughed in delight as the puny human recovered from his telepathic onslaught. "You know, I clearly underestimated this mortal, Dahak. He's got spirit, I'll give him that. And talent to boot," he added, looking up from the Gabriel Gray creature and into Dahak's gorgeous green eyes.

"You know I hate it when you call me that," she replied haughtily. "My daughter called me that, my followers called me that, and the Pantheon gods called me that. It's like calling me Satan. That's not my real name. Hope knew that, but she thought it sounded snazzier than 'The First.' Said nobody would get it."

"Oh, I get it, but it's not a proper name, and I've known you as Dahak since—"

The mortal's voice must have come back to him just then, because he was interrupted by its croaking groan, "Who. . . are you?"

The looming immortal turned back to the Gabriel Gray creature and announced with a wicked grin, "I guess I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm Ares, God of War."

A flicker of confusion crossed Gabriel's face before the light of recognition lit his eyes. "The Greek god, Ares? Like in Xena?"

Anger flared in Ares' eyes as he took a step forward, his hand blazing with an un-thrown plasma bolt. "How do you know about Xena?" he raged. "That was thousands of years before your time!"

To his utter surprise, the mortal worm broke out in ragged laughter, grabbing his sides as his body urged itself to heal. Ares' power had done a number on his own abilities. "Don't you ever watch TV?" he chortled in pain.

Ares stopped, his brain moving at full-speed as he made thousands of years' worth of connect-the-dots. Finally, it came to him. . . "Fucking scrolls!" he screamed to the empty sky.

Gabriel didn't have any clue what Ares was talking about, so he changed the subject. "What do you want with me?" he finally asked, looking back to the First.

"Sylar, Ares is going to be training you."

"Training me for what?" he asked warily, looking at the ancient deity.

Ares grinned, drawing his sword and tossing it to Gabriel. "What else? To be a god."

Please review! Let me know what you like, and what you think needs work! I'm open to constructive criticism!


	11. Chapter 11

Willow dipped her toe into the steaming water, careful to keep her other foot on the mat at the foot of her tub. After her run-in with the First three months ago, Willow was extra-careful whenever she had anything to do with water. Also, she'd had her bathroom remodeled. Others thought she was just being vain, tripling the size of her bathroom, but Willow being practical. If she ever slipped and fell in the bathroom, she wanted the chances that she hit her head or neck on something reduced greatly. Who wanted to spend the rest of their lives as a paraplegic just because she couldn't keep her footing?

Also, Willow had taken the bathroom's remodeling as an excuse to so a little bit of redecorating around her apartment, too. She'd changed the walls (ochre to a rust color, accented with golden leaves) and had taken up the carpeting to replace it with hardwood floors. In her bathroom, she'd taken stone carvings she'd found at ancient temples from around the world and set them as tiles in the floor, sealed in magicked glass. Her tub was actually a stone basin made from curved markers found in the tomb of Netjerykhet in Egypt. Out of all the luxuries she'd allowed for herself (and gods new she needed them), this tub was her favorite. Whenever she laid in it, the healing powers from the mystical stones would soak into her body, rejuvenating her so that she always came out fresher than a full night's sleep.

And she needed a rest. She hadn't slept much since that day that she'd seen her best friend killed by reciprocal telekinesis. That fact that she'd gone down saving the world again didn't soothe the hurt that permeated every thought she had about her best friend. The fact that this time, the last time, Buffy's death was inviolable broke something inside of Willow that she didn't even know was there. If the circumstances were different, if just one thing had been happened in a different way, the Willow would never have been able to see the truth of it. But no—standing there at the edge of the square, she'd been forced to watch as the best woman she'd ever known give her life by sacrificing her head. That was the ultimate death, and Willow knew that Buffy knew that as well.

And now she'd never be able to tell her. No, it wasn't a surprise that she'd loved Buffy. Anybody who ever spent any amount of time alone with her loved her too, with all of their heart. Willow never would have acted on her feelings for her, though. They were too close. Sex would have been a divider between them that Willow did not want or need. They were sisters, and that was what Willow had needed from her best friend after Tara had died, and a friend when she and Kennedy were having problems. But what kind of friend had Willow been when Buffy needed her? She could help but to wail at the injustices she had caused her friend over the years. Buffy had selflessly given her all, her life for her friends and her family—not to mention the entire world—and Willow, in a moment of selfishness, yanked Buffy out of Heaven so that she could come right back and face Hell all over again. Alone.

iAnd yet,/i she thought as planted her foot on the trench of the tub and lifted her other in as well, settling down to lie back against the curve of the warm glass, iI'd do it again if I could./i Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the molecules in the wicks of the candles she'd placed about the room, causing them to vibrate at a higher frequency. Within half a second, all the candles were lit, and Willow, with a giddy smile, lifted her hands out of the water and clapped her hands three times. The Clap-On/Clap-Off turned off the lights instantly, leaving the bathroom drenched in the low glow of candlelight. iI don't care who you are—The Clapper is always fun./i

Willow was seriously contemplating conjuring up a rejuvenation mask for the bags under her eyes when the water in the tub exploded outwards, drenching the candles and leaving the room pitch black. Willow, wary of jumping to her feet in a bathtub with just enough water left in it to cause her to slip and fall, stayed where she was and formed a plasma bolt in her left hand while calling forth light from the other. What she saw when her hand lit up scared the shit out of her.

Standing there, between her legs, was a blonde woman with a cut over her right eye and a katana in her hand, the point of which was mere centimeters from Willow's neck. "Ωηερε αμ Ι? Μορε το τηε ποιγτ, ωηεγ αμ Ι?"

"Huh?" Willow asked, surprised. It sounded like this girl was speaking ancient Greek. With a really, really thick accent.

"Ωηο αρε ψου? Αρε ψου τηε Ωιλλοω?"

Willow struggled to remember what Greek she knew while this strange woman—who'd somehow teleported through a mystical barrier that iWillow herself/i had put into place—held a very sharp-looking sword at her jugular. "Ummm. . ." she squeaked, trying to get her phrasing just right. "What did you say?"

The girl gave her a strange look and asked, "Why do you speak with such a strange accent? Who are you and where are you from?"

Willow, pretty sure she understood everything that this girl was saying, replied: "My name is Willow Rosenburg, and I am from Sunnydale, California."

The girl frowned but dropped the tip of her sword, bringing it to rest on the glass between her legs, the threat unmistakable. If Willow so much as looked at this woman wrong, she'd be dead. The woman's eyes flickered to the plasma bold still simmering in Willow's left hand, and Willow, for some reason trusting this woman to not kill her without provocation, quenched it in her fist. The woman seemed satisfied at this, and sheathed her sword. "Where is that?"

Willow forgot for a second and spoke in English. "Where is what?" The look from the woman told Willow that she hadn't understood her. She repeated her question in Greek.

"Enough. I do not have time for this. Are you the Willow that summoned the Oncoming Storm?"

Willow was very confused now. "Um, my name is Willow, but I have no ide—" Then it hit her. The Oncoming Storm was what the First had called the Doctor. The Doctor who was now dead. "Yes, I—called—the Doctor, but he was destroyed saving the world."

The girl's face fell, and she looked around, surveying the room with the dim light available from Willow's hand. "Shall we not light a torch, or one of these candles?" Willow, forgetting herself, had not thought to turn on the lights. Standing up, she clapped her hands twice, and the lights came on. Seeing this, the woman seemed impressed. "You are a powerful witch."

Willow grinned, but didn't correct her. She iwas/i a powerful witch, even if she'd only used technology to turn on the lights. "Who are you?" she asked as she stepped out of the tub.

"My name is Gabrielle. I was sent here by my best friend to help the Oncoming Storm save the whole of existence." Willow, now standing and not laying on her back with a sword in her face, could see that the woman was trying to act brave—and indeed she was—but she seemed uncertain of herself, and confused at the room around her. "What is this place?"

"It's where I bathe," Willow said, suddenly very conscious that she was standing in her bathroom naked with a strange attractive blonde warrior staring her down like she'd seen it a million times. It kinda hurt Willow's feelings, the other girl not even noticing her indecency. "So where are you from?" Willow asked, trying to sound nonchalant as she crossed an arm over her breasts and moved her other to cover her sex.

The girl idid/i notice, however, and blushed a little as she answered. "I apologize for my rudeness. I was supposed to arrive in the Circle of Heb-Sed, but instead I landed in your bath."

"Actually," Willow replied, "you did arrive in the Circle of Heb-Sed." The girl's eyes widened as she looked back at the tub. "Yep," the witch grinned guiltily, "I brought it over because of the healing properties they once gave the pharaohs of Egypt. By the way, would you mind handing me a cloth?" Willow asked, nodding toward the towels behind her.

The girl handed a few over, which Willow quickly used to cover her nakedness. "How far are we from Saqqara?" she asked as Willow wrapped her hair with an extra towel.

"Ummm, we are about 1,333 miles from there, in Rome, Italy."

"Rome? Is this Caesar's palace?"

Willow tried her best not to snicker. She was unsuccessful. "Um, no. . . That's in Vegas. And there hasn't been a Caesar in, like, sixteen hundred years."

"Really?" Gabrielle mused. "Then that means I am very, very far from home."

"Why? Where are you from?"

"Well," Gabrielle sighed, "it's more of a question of iwhen/i I am from."

"What do you mean?" Willow asked, sure she knew the answer. After all, why were they speaking in ancient Greek?

"Because I've moved forward in time at least a few millennia." Looking at Gabrielle's face, she knew that she was telling the truth. Why would she lie about moving forward in time?

Before she could even formulate a question to ask her, the door to her bathroom burst from its hinges, narrowly missing Willow and causing Gabrielle to dive out of the way. In the dust cloud that formed from broken sheet-rock, Illyria stepped through the door. Willow, surprised and not knowing why the god-king had come kicking down the door to her bathroom, raised her palm and pushed outward, creating a moving force-field. When it hit Illyria, she slowed down for second, but did not halt her progress to the blonde warrior standing by the sink.

"Illyria, wha—"

"Stay out of this, witch, or I will not forget your trespass against me," the former god warned.

"What? You're the one who's trespassing here!"

Illyria stopped a few steps away from Gabrielle, staring her down with all the iciness that she could muster. Not once taking her eyes off of Gabrielle, she answered her. "I was searching out Hellspawn in the lower dimensions when I felt a temporal vortex coupled with a spatial displacement. I came as fast as I could, as it could only be the Lonely One."

"But why the hell did you break down my door?" Willow half-screamed.

"I tried to open a portal at the source of the disturbance, but your mystical barrier caused the portal to not connect. I opened one to the outside of the barrier and opened it the hard way." Willow was about to say something to her but Illyria cut her off. "Ware, witch. Just because you hold the Spark of Creation does not give you the ability to not be crushed like the insect you are." Turning her attention back to Gabrielle, she spoke in English, the same language Illyria had been speaking to Willow since she'd entered the room. "You are not the Lonely One. Do you serve him, worm?"

To Willow's surprise, Gabrielle answered her back in English. "I serve no one's purpose but that of the Fates."

Illyria did not like this answer. "WHO IS YOUR GOD?" she screamed at the girl.

Gabrielle stood her ground and squared her shoulders. "I serve ino/i god! The gods of Olympus tremble before the might of Xena and Gabrielle!"

Now it was time for both Illyria and Willow to be taken aback. iWhy is she risking her life talking about some television show?/i Illyria raised her fist above her head and glared at Gabrielle as the air around it grew dark. "You will pay for deposing me, insolent worm! I will make a trophy of your spine!" She brought her fist down on empty air.

Gabrielle, having seen an attack coming, was moving so fast that Willow had a hard time following her. Running around Illyria, she picked up Willow's statue of Bast from the toilet tank and swung it with inhuman speed at Illyria's head. Illyria, slowing down time, was able to dodge it, though just barely. Gabrielle, using the follow through with the swing, brought her left elbow around and caught Illyria in the nose, staggering her back in pain. "You. . ." Illyria began. "You are a Slayer?"

"For a couple of weeks now, yes," Gabrielle answered, slowly unsheathing her sword. Reaching between her breasts, she pulled out a necklace with a red vial at the end of it. "Do you know what this is?" she asked, her voice cold as she held it up for the god to see.

Illyria's confident demeanor changed in an instant as Gabrielle brought the vial close to the edge of her blade. "You would kill me, a god?"

Gabrielle smirked, and it scared the hell out of Willow. "It wouldn't be the first time, bitch."

Just at that time, a phone started ringing from the basket that Willow put her things in when she took off her clothes. Gabrielle and Illyria both looked at her, not understanding the sound coming from the basket. "Um, I'll get it!" Willow spoke up, hoping she sounded cheery. Walking over to the sink, she took the ringing phone out of the basket and could not remember whose it was. It certainly wasn't hers. The ringing stopped, and Willow was about to put it back down when it started ringing again. Nonplussed, Willow opened the flip-phone and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Bloody hell, it's about time, isn't it? Ring up the Doctor for me, love."

Willow stopped cold. The Doctor. She had picked up his phone on the catwalk from that underground complex in the alternate universe. And it got great reception. "May I ask who this is?"

"Hey, now, missy!" came the grating voice on the other line. "I don't have time for games. Now, hand over the phone to the Doctor so he and I can go about saving the universe once again."

Willow didn't know what to say, so she told the truth. "Um, m'am, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but the Doctor's dead."

"Okay then, fine," came the fussy voice, "just let me speak with the Doctor."

"M'am, I don't think you understand! I saw the Doctor die right before my eyes!"

"And how did he die?" she asked hesitantly.

"He was disintegrated in an alien machine called the Rift Manipulator."

"Oh, my. My, my, my, my, my. . ." the voice drifted off. Suddenly, as if she had had a thought, the woman on the other end exclaimed, "But that's okay! We'll get him back, don't you worry. Trust me, I'm the Doctor Donna!"

hr/ Please review! Let me know what you liked about it, what you think could be better, or any ideas you have for it!


	12. Chapter 12

hr/ "Who? Did you just say iDoctor/i Donna? As in ithe/i Doctor?"

"Right you are, love. I experienced a Time-Lord metacrisis regeneration transference due to the biological mutuality in the DNA reconstruction exhibitors."

Willow reeled at the technobabble coming from the other side of her phone. Struggling to pull together all the nerdiness/geekiness she'd ever exhibited, she hazarded a guess as to what this iDoctor/i Donna was talking about. "So, um, the Doctor was healing and you got some of it, making you this Doctor Donna?"

"You are a brilliant one, aren't you? Who exactly am I talking to?" the strange woman gushed.

"Well, I'm the Prime Magus of the Slayers of the Sineyan Line," she answered, unsure of why she was telling this stranger her title. "But my friends call me Willow."

"Bugger. You're a witch, aren't you? And you utilize the quasi-rational bombardments from a local ley line Nexus, don't you?"

"Um, yeah. If you're talking on a macro-scale, three quarters of our solar system is located in a ley line Nexus, stacked vertically among the Higher and Lower dimensions."

Doctor Donna used a swear that even Willow wasn't sure was a real word. "Then you must be in a same-space dimension."

"You mean an alternate universe? Why do you say that?"

"Because the universe that I'm in does not bear 'the magicks,' as you call them, within a structured frame!" she ground out, obviously upset. "That must be why my Time-Lord latencies were brought about without burning me out. Someone must have released an unstable negating spell, canceling metaphysical bonds and blockages and such."

Willow was shocked. "Um, Doctor Donna?"

"Yes, child, what is it? I'm trying to be brilliant here."

"That was me." Willow barely registered a sudden flash of speed as Illyria ran over to her and grabbed her by the throat.

"Excuse me? What did you just say?" came the voice on the other end. But Willow could not answer due to the fact that Illyria was crushing her windpipe. Not even thinking, Willow released the torrent of the Spark into her hand and placed it on Illyria's breast, pushing with everything she had. Illyria exploded back, disappearing through the bathroom wall into Willow's kitchen.

"Hold on for a second, will you?" she asked politely, her voice going cold and her eyes black. She set the phone down on edge of the sink and walked through the hole, the air around her crackling with dark energy.

hr/ iHello? Hello!/i came the frantic voice from the phone's speakers.

Gabrielle was clueless as to what had just happened. Somehow Illyria, who she and Xena had put down years ago, was up and running around in a human's body. And, on top of that, there was this naked girl walking around with the magick of the gods. Gabrielle had been around enough of them to know the ozone-like taste in the air whenever a god used its powers. This girl, who called herself a witch, was juiced beyond anything Gabrielle had dealt with before.

And then, while talking to another powerful being through some sort of magical clam, the witch, Willow, had admitted to a grievous offense. Illyria, a god, who obviously could not stand the threat and the insolence to her kind, had meant to take the girl's life. The witch, however, was powerful. Throwing the god into the next room through an "improvised door," she'd gone in after her to presumably kill it. Gabrielle didn't know if you could kill a god without the Hynd's blood, but she was keeping hers securely around her neck.

iHello? Hello!/i came the voice yet again from the magical clam. iHello? Will you bloody pick up the phone?/i

Gabrielle was not sure the "phone" clam would work for her as it did the witch, but she thought that maybe the being on the other end could provide some answers. She walked over to clam and picked it up, holding it to her head as she'd seen Willow do. "Hello? Can you hear me?" she called into the base of the shell.

"Bloody hell, you don't have to yell! And why are you speaking in Greek?"

"Which god am I talking to?"

"Oh, bleeding biscuits, you're from the past, aren't you?"

Gabrielle was surprised, but answered the goddess. "Yes, I am. Are you a god of time?"

Stunned silence stretched on for what seemed like an eternity while Gabrielle could hear a loud iSMACK! SMACK! CRACK!/i coming from the other room. Finally, the goddess on the other end answered her. "Well, I'm something like that. And who are you?"

"My name is Gabrielle, of Potidaea. The spirit of my friend, Xena, told me to obtain the Scarab Grace," she told her, glancing at the magicked vambrace on her right arm, "and then to go to the Great Pyramid at Saqqara and obtain the Ring of Time."

"Ring of Time?" the goddess asked, excitedly. "Do you still have it?"

"Indeed, I do. Why?"

"Do me a favor, you radiant, magnificent girl! Think of these numbers, and these numbers only: 51.49453/-0.25475/GC L179° 56′ 39.4″/L+0° 2′ 46.2″/D7,940 ± 420 parsecs/Λ2814/U672."

Gabrielle had no clue as to what this goddess was saying to her, but in hearing the words, her mind repeated them and the Time Ring around her right wrist sparked and glowed, enveloping her entire body in yellow light. Before she knew it, she was being teleported, though it felt nothing like it had before.

Her body was wracked with pain as she could feel herself being ripped apart in a trillion pieces and transported off so fast that she could not scream at the pain. She felt herself (all the pieces that made up the Gabrielle that she was) pass through a barrier, thick as cold honey, and then she was standing in the middle of a small field with a few trees and a small temple in the distance.

She gasped for air, drawing a foul tasting mixture into her lungs as her chest burned with the pain of the transfer. "Hello!" came a far-off voice that was all too familiar. Turning her head, she caught sight of a red-haired woman making her way to Gabrielle's squatting figure. As she came closer, she exclaimed, "Welcome to Turnham Green Park, my favorite place in Chiswick!"

Gabrielle, nonplussed, dropped to her knees and heaved the contents of her stomach out onto the freshly manicured lawn.

hr/ Hope you liked it! Let me know either way, okay? Reviews are the nectar of the gods!


	13. Chapter 13

Deepest apologies for the long interval! I own nothing but the Devourer. Star Trek, BTVS, Doctor Who, Xena, and all the other shows I'm using here do not belong to me. So don't try suing me, okay? I don't have anything you could possibly want, except for my laptop and HMD, both of which I will go down fighting for. . .

Okay, so enough with my insane rantings, and on with the story!

hr/ Q looked down at the pieces on the chessboard, his fingers steepled as he took in the various moves taken in deep concentration. It had been millennia since he had been challenged in such as way as he was being challenged now. He could see where the moves were going, but not the denouement of the exquisite game being played by so many. He was pulling strings, but only because he was interested in seeing how things would play out.

His grin would have been sickening, had anyone been around to see it. No, he was alone now, as he had been for the eternity of his existence. An existence which he now knew was pointless. He, as well as the rest of the Continuum, sought out diversion for momentary entertainment. Everything is so. . . boring, once you've seen both the beginning and the end of the universe in a thousand faceted view from the perspective of every race there to witness them. Immortality is so. . . tedious. Even the finiteness of the universe is not enough to satiate Q's hunger for something more. And then there was the Devourer.

Never before and never again is there anything like it in all of time or space. It should not have existed and yet it did, and it is here, now, threatening all of existence before its given time. And Q was thrilled! Now he was experiencing something akin to mortality, with the possibility of non-existence ever-present on a horizon he could not see around. Now he could have fun!

He didn't care if he died. That would be a new experience in and of itself, and therefore something he had to try! But he wasn't suicidal yet, either. That wouldn't come for another couple of millennia. No, he wanted to make things interesting! So, he took at look at the players on the board and decided to go to work, playing the Deus ex Machina thing to the hilt. The heroes on the board were too good, had prevailed too many times with or without the help of their most trusted side-kicks. And the "villains" on the board were all either too weak or too stupid to be much fun. So, he leveled the playing field.

He'd made certain the deaths of Buffy Summers and the two Halliwell sisters had come about, but in a way that would make their grieving loved ones want to take up the fight. He'd plucked an amusing little spirit from her vigilance in Japan and made her do his bidding in the past, securing a way for Gabrielle to join the little team he was putting together. The clincher, though, had been in convincing the V from the next dimension over to let him have the make-shift Time Lord. His little team of sidekicks was coming together nicely, and he had a few additions yet to be made.

He'd found some potential for the Dark Side, and was nurturing it with everything he could think of to give him. Sylar was becoming very powerful, very fast. Q had some ideas about potential allies, but was keeping them on the back-burner for the moment until the particular kettle he was firing up was steeped just right.

"Am I interrupting something? Or are you done jacking off your ego?"

The voice behind him startled Q so much that he accidentally knocked over his chessboard when he jumped to his feet. Scowling at the First, he waved his hand over the mess and it all reappeared on a table off to the side of the room, everything back where it was on the board. "First!" he growled. "Always a displeasure. May I NOT offer you a tea?"

The First, having taken on the form of the late Buffy Summers, flashed Q a cold grin, freezing Q to the continuum. "No, you may not. Fetch me some?"

Q reluctantly snapped his fingers, summoning up a cup of the most foul-tasting tea he could conjure. "What is it that you want, First? I haven't tread upon that which is yours. Leave me be!"

The First just grinned demurely as it took a tentative sip of the tea in her hand. "Actually, you have, Q. You've stepped over the line that I very specifically told you inot/i to cross when I first helped your race to achieve ascension. Do you not remember the Decrees?"

Q gulped, trying to dislodge the very real lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. "Of-of course I do! We have all been careful to avoid your interests."

The First's voice dropped deep and cold, betraying the dark god that was inside the pretty facade of the late Slayer. ibYou have touched what is MINE, Q! She was MINE!"/b/i It reached out its tendrils of power and pulled Q from his semi-omnipresent perches and brought his entire being to their position in space and time. "Now," it said prettily, in Buffy Summer's voice, "I'm gonna make you pay!"

hr/ Please review!


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